This Make-A-Wish Kid Got To Meet Daniel Jones And The Doctors Said It Made His Cancer Even Worse

We’ve all heard the story. A woman gets diagnosed with cancer and starts living her most authentic life, riding horses, caring for the sick, spending time with family. Three months later her cancer is in full remission. 

Thanks to Daniel Jones, this is not that story. 

The lifelong dream of 12-year-old leukemia patient Nicky Cooper was to meet the Colts’ starting quarterback. That dream was facilitated, reluctantly, by the Make-a-Wish foundation. 

“We knew what would happen,” said teary-eyed Make-A-Wish CEO Leslie Motter while speaking to reporters outside the Intensive Care wing at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital, “But the kid wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

On the morning of the visit, Cooper’s stats were his best in weeks: His white blood cell count was at 5,500, hemoglobin was at 15, and he was notching 250,000 platelets per microliter. Cooper’s nurse said the boy was feeling good, feeling good, ready to meet his hero, “Danny Dimes.” 

As soon as Jones entered the room, however, things took a sharp turn. The Geist, Ind., sixth grader complained about feeling “deep exhaustion” just trying to find a topic of conversation. “We couldn’t gain any ground,” said Cooper. “Plus when my mom finally brought in a plate of turnovers, [Jones] got really excited and ate them all.” 

Seeing that the visit was tanking, Jones called an audible. He produced a football signed by the entire Colts offense. But he kept dropping it on the way to Cooper’s bed and finally gave up and tossed it to the boy. The orderly intercepted it by mistake. 

“At this point, Nicky was looking really bad, his levels were dropping, and I could just see his cancer getting worse,” said attending physician Dr. Lauren Burroughs. “We had to pull Jones. It was either that or certain defeat.” 

Rather than bring in Colts’ backup Riley Leonard, however, the hospital staff just had a punter come in and sit with him.