Who is Silas?
Silas’s heart gave out, on March 21st 2022 our sweet boy had a heart attack one week before his second birthday. Doctors tried to save him, by that time he had already been moved to ICU and had a whole team trying to build him up enough to be able to fight the cancer. The cancer did not kill Silas though, the measures we have in place to fight cancer for our kids is what killed Silas. Four days after starting chemo he left this world because of a heart attack.
Why Ducks???
Silas had a big plastic blow up duck, it was an infant bath tub in the beginning, but was used as a toy box. Silas loved playing with this over sized rubber duck. Silas’s Gigi and Pawpaw bought a Jeep a month before he got sick. A friend “ducked” them a couple of weeks before March. When Silas’s Gigi made the trips to the hospital the Jeep sat parked, but the day after he passed she took the Jeep out for the first time in a month. The heartbreak of loosing this precious little boy so quickly was all consuming and the hurt was unimaginable.
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Until…. His Gigi looked down as she drove through town running errands, and she saw the small rubber duck their friend had given them a month ago. That was the moment Silas’s Ducks became a shimmer of hope, a vision of something. She smiled as she cried seeing this little duck and thinking of his big duck he so loved playing with and knew it was time to help other families for Silas. Silas is loved and missed deeply and thanks to all of you he will never be forgotten.
We have been Quackin' smiles across the miles since 2022 in memory of Silas Theodore Mooney. We are making a difference in other children's fight in honor and in love of our sweet boy.
ABOUT US
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Silas Mooney was a very energetic toddler. He was never sick during his first almost two years of life. Silas was growing normally and hitting all of the normal benchmarks of a developing toddler. Silas has two older brothers and one older sister along with one baby brother. He enjoyed playing hard with his siblings and was a typical almost two year old. He kept his family on their toes and loved to play hard outside.
Silas was flourishing in every way or so it seemed. Little did any of us know that his little body was fighting against him. We don’t know when the cancer formed or how quickly it spread because he never slowed down nor cried from any unknown pains. Outwardly Silas looked like a normal healthy boy. A few weeks before his second birthday things changed forever.
Silas's belly seemed a little firm, like poop belly, and he has a small bruise under his eye that would not get better. He was seen at his brother's wellness checkup and was sent for testing. Tests showed that his liver was encompassed with a mass. We were sent to Brenner’s Childrens Hospital that afternoon. This was the first time we heard the dreaded words childhood cancer. Within a week he was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma. Silas started chemo on day 8 of his hospital stay, and never left the hospital. The chemo was just too much for this toddler's body to handle.
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