At 11 years old and entering his final years of high school, Landon Motter was on the cusp of a growth spurt.
So when he started feeling pain in his hip in the summer of 2023, doctors dismissed it as growing pains.
The family, from Maryland, had originally associated the pain with go-karting, which they had done a lot of on the trip.
But as the summer progressed and Landon started school, the pain became so unbearable that he would wake up crying in the middle of the night. During soccer practice, his parents noticed he was limping.
A bone biopsy revealed stage four blood cancer that had spread to the hip bones.
Landon Motter of Maryland was 11 years old (left) when he was diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma called anaplastic large cell lymphoma.
Before his diagnosis, Landon (pictured here) was an active high school student who played football. However, severe cramps left him limping and unable to sleep at night.
Landon’s mother, Courtney Anderson, 32, said TODAY.com“I was completely devastated.”
“When you hear the word cancer, you go blank. I think, ‘Oh my God, what will her life be like after this? Will she survive?'”
Landon’s diagnosis came amid a mysterious rise in childhood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma in the United States.
Experts have theorized that the trend may be driven by environmental exposures such as antibiotics, air pollution and ultra-processed foods.
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When the pain started waking Landon up in the middle of the night and keeping him from playing soccer, his parents realized it might be more than just growing pains.
“We were giving him Motrin pretty much all the time. As soon as it wore off, he would just cry,” Anderson said.
‘Once he started waking up in the middle of the night when the Motrin was wearing off, we thought, “This is definitely more than just growing pains. There’s no reason he should be awakened from his sleep by that kind of pain.”
After being dismissed by the pediatrician, Landon’s parents took him to a sports doctor, who took X-rays that came back normal.
An oncologist at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., performed blood tests, which also showed no abnormalities.
However, the family refused to take no for an answer and sought out more specialists.
A rheumatologist then performed a bone biopsy that discovered stage four anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), a rare form of blood cancer.
The cancer, which attacks the lymphatic system, likely evaded blood tests because lymphoma cells do not circulate in the blood in high enough numbers for blood tests to detect them.
Landon’s father, Blake Motter, told TODAY.com: “We went through five or seven different doctors until we did the bone biopsy.”
“It was absolutely devastating. It’s tough. When you hear that there’s cancer, you immediately assume that your child is going to die.”
ALCL occurs when disease-fighting white blood cells attack the lymphatic system, a group of organs and tissues such as bone marrow and lymph nodes that help the immune system fight threats.
This graphic highlights some of the lesser-known signs of cancer in children, including early or late puberty, developmental delays, slow growth, slow recovery from bone injuries, limited or abnormal facial movement, and hearing problems.
Landon, shown here getting his first haircut after chemotherapy, is now cancer-free and in seventh grade. He plans to stay active and play football and soccer.
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma affects about 800 American children each year, and about one in 100 is diagnosed with the Landon subtype. And as with Landon, most children are diagnosed at later stages, as symptoms can mask other common conditions.
He underwent six rounds of chemotherapy, all of which required him to stay in the hospital for at least five days at a time. Although he told his parents that the hospital was driving him “crazy,” he never complained.
“He just knew this was something he had to do to save his life,” Anderson said.
It is unclear what caused his illness, although experts estimate that children like Landon develop lymphoma due to genetics or a weakened immune system.
As of this spring, Landon is cancer-free, though he still has to have regular checkups to see if the disease has returned. It is estimated that one in ten patients like Landon will experience a relapse at some point.
He is now 12 years old, has started seventh grade and plans to join the football team.
“This was really just a bump in the road for Landon, and physically he feels great,” Anderson said.
