⭑ max’s story ⭑

Maximilian Samuel Schuster was born on July 22, 2013, and the world became a brighter place.

Max was born perpetually happy, always smiling and giggling. He loved to laugh and be silly, swing for hours and was curious from a very young age. It was this growing curiosity that nurtured his love for building. While he loved to build and put just about anything together (puzzles, crafts, furniture, race tracks,etc.), it was Lego that was his true love. I try to say this objectively as a parent, but he truly was a Lego master builder, starting with real Lego at age 2 and never looked back. Max was an easy-going kid who also loved to travel, anything superhero or StarWars, rock out to rock music, and above all, find laughter with silly jokes, scaring pranks and fun games.

At age 4, in October of 2017, Max was diagnosed with AML (leukemia) and our lives were shattered. Although we lived in Calgary, we had started a major house renovation and both parents were traveling for work, so Max was diagnosed and started his first six months of treatment at the Stollery Children’s Hospital. We migrated back home and to the Alberta Children’s Hospital when the first treatment protocol failed and we had to subsequently attempt a bone marrow transplant, followed by a second bone marrow transplant when he relapsed in October 2018. 

Until you have a child diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and you spend the bulk of your life in a hospital, you can’t truly imagine the fear, pain, trauma, exhaustion and anger that comes with this battle.

But this experience also brings a remarkable amount of joy and life lessons. It teaches you that every day is worth fighting for, that smiles and laughter can bloom in darkness, that hope is a powerful tool, that people will show up when you need them most and that our children are so much stronger than we think. 

Max taught us to always find joy and live to the max.