The Nordan Family

Claud Patrick Nordan is a bundle of energy. The precious five-year-old is as comfortable playing and running the halls of RMHC Mobile as he would be in his own home.  For almost two years, it was his home. His and his mother’s, Juanita Nordan.

Initially, Juanita lived at RMHC Mobile for five weeks when Claud was born with a list of complications, including renal vein thrombosis, a brain bleed, and a hernia on one side of his abdomen. He’s in stage 3 renal failure, but Juanita is optimistic that Claud will receive a kidney transplant when he reaches puberty.

Unfortunately, those early health issues were just the beginning of a difficult journey.

In January 2020, a week before his second birthday, Claud was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Between hospital stays at USA Health Children’s and Women’s that ranged from three days to two months, Juanita, Claud, and Juanita’s mother, Erin, lived at RMHC Mobile for more than 1½ years. It was home for them, and the staff and volunteers became their family. So much so that maintenance manager Carl Knaebel is now “Papa Carl” to Claud.

“It was hard coming back the second time because of his diagnosis,” Juanita said. “When the doctors told me he had cancer, I mentally checked out. I couldn’t hear or grasp anything they said. No one should ever have to hear cancer and child in the same sentence.”

During their stay at RMHC, Claud was susceptible to infections. A random bug would put him in the hospital for a week. Once, Juanita said, she took him outside to play. “I just wanted him to be a little boy, but he scraped his toe on the concrete—it was no bigger than a papercut—and that turned necrotic.”

Despite being on five or six antibiotics, he lost his toe. This led to two months in the hospital and daily trips by ambulance to Springhill Memorial Hospital for hyperbaric chamber treatments.

“We really leaned on everybody here,” Juanita said. “My mother would do the laundry and get our meals because Claud couldn’t be around other people. Things would have been so much harder had we not been here. We didn’t want for anything.”

It was more than just the accommodations that helped the Nordan family.

“This was home for a long time, and it’s kind of hard to leave home,” Juanita said. “Claud feels safe here, and I know we can always come visit.”

In May of this year, Claud rang the bell signaling the end of chemotherapy treatments. “He’s only five, but he understood no more chemo. He had to have chemo longer than most because of his renal issues, but his doctors were in overdrive for him.”

Juanita is in her second semester of nursing school at Coastal Alabama Community College, enhancing her knowledge, she said, because she knows Claud may have a lifetime of struggles and she wants to be able to help him.

For his part, Claud was like any other rambunctious 5-year-old boy on their recent visit to the House, choosing toys from the toy closet, scampering up the slide on the playground, or chasing Joe, the resident dog. Always in shouting distance of his beloved “Papa Carl” and always with a smile on his face.