On a warm June morning, the Central Ohio Cyclones youth baseball team took their positions on the diamond, ready to fight to win.
The players sported orange leukemia awareness ribbons on their helmets, showing their support for their absent teammate, Brady Martin, who was fighting for something even bigger: his life.
Now, three years later, Brady and his family – mother Kristin, father Chris, sister Aubrey and brothers Blake and Cooper – have shown their support to tens of thousands of people by gifting them plush ‘battle pups,’ and letting them know they’re not alone in their fight, either.
Maisie Fitzmaurice
If we can’t find joy in our circumstances, then let us be joy in someone else’s - Kristin Martin.
Brady was only 9 years old when he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer that attacks blood and bone marrow. His case was very rare due to a genetic mutation, and he was one of only 65 documented cases with this aggressive mutation. The numbers weren’t on his side, and his family had to hope and believe – against a
Maisie Fitzmaurice
ll odds – that he would pull through.
Gifting the plush toy to the family filled Brady with joy, and he wanted to do it again, and again, and again. Since dogs were his and his family’s favorite animals, they decided a stuffed version of the loyal companion would be a great gift for those needing comfort and support.
Thus, the Martins’ organization, Way to Battle, and its battle pups, were born.
“We could call them battle pups because they're with you in the battle, and for our family, we had been praying for our family to be armed with strength for the battle we were in,” Kristin says. “Each dog has a collar, and on the back, it says, ‘armed with strength,’ because we pray that everyone who gets a battle pup will know that they have been armed with strength for whatever battle they're facing.”
No one battles alone
At first, Way to Battle was focused on serving other children and families affected by cancer, but that changed after Kristin and Chris reluctantly allowed their kids to give a pup to every player on the Ohio State soccer team.
“Two or three days later we went back to another game and some of the parents of those young men came up to us crying, and said, ‘You have no idea the impact your family and your story has made on our son. Our son was going through a lot of depression, our son had been injured and had missed the season’…One boy was contemplating ending his life because things were really hard… that's when we went, ‘Woah, this is so much bigger than just childhood cancer. This is for everyone, always.’”
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Since then, battle pups have been sent around the world to an estimated 40,000 people, including survivors of natural disasters, grieving loved ones, hospital patients and more. They partner with schools’ guidance departments, police departments, care facilities and fire departments to reach people in need of hope and kindness.
As a result, battle pups have, and continue to, offer support for any and everyone. Whether it’s a child having surgery or an older adult taking their last breath, battle pups have been at their side.
“We get to celebrate and be with those that don't necessarily have the ribbon of the month as we like to say, because a lot of people know September is childhood cancer awareness month, and so we like to be there for all of the other months and for all of the other people who maybe don't have that ribbon,” Kristin says.
A chain reaction
The Martins’ story and acts of kindness have inspired others to join in and help in any way they can, including a supporter who voluntarily removes the limbs of battle pups and sews them up to gift to amputees.
Kristin says that Way to Battle’s funding currently doesn’t come from commercial partners. It comes from those who believe in their mission.
After a traffic incident killed three Tuscarawas Valley High School students in Zoarville, Ohio, Way to Battle donated more than 2,000 battle pups to the school’s grieving students.
“We had one family from that community who gave us enough financially to cover that entire give, which was $20,000 because they wanted us to be able to say ‘yes’ to the next community that needed us in that way,” Kristin says. “And (that community) turned out to be Indian Lake, then a gentleman from Indian Lake rented a trailer and loaded it full of battle pups and drove them to North Carolina…it’s literally linking and tying all of these communities and places together through the things they’ve been through.”
Coming out victorious
After a long battle, This December will mark two years cancer-free for Brady. While his family, friends and medical team kept their spirits high during his worst moments, it was still a miracle for them to witness his recovery.
“It’s hard for (his oncologist,) like emotionally, just because kids like him didn't used to survive,” Kristin says. “He’s a case that did not have a high percentage or good outlook for survival, and so the fact that if you walked into this room, you would never have guessed that he has been through everything he’s been through, and the outlook was so bleak, and so here he is playing soccer and baseball and school and everything.”
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The family continues to grow their organization, and in October, the Martins moved their organization into a warehouse space in Canal Winchester where they stock and ship packages as well as handle administrative work. They have also expanded their selection of dog plush options so each family member could have their own unique pup.
Anyone can go to www.waytobattle.com to send a battle pup to someone they feel needs a little support. Each package shipped comes with the plush pup and a wristband, an item added after Kristin noticed some kids would cut their pup’s collar off and wear it when they didn’t have their battle pup around.
“We help serve in child protective services, so kids in foster care, kids that are currently going through traumatic court trials for abuse…they would put (the collars) on their ankles so that they would have them in the courtroom, that they would know that they weren’t alone,” Kristin says.
Their new headquarters also harbors a couple of supportive spaces, outfitted with chairs, couches and toys, used for conducting hard conversations. The Martins had a similar space for difficult conversations with their children during Brady’s battle. That space is where Blake talked with Kristin and bravely agreed to be a bone marrow donor for his brother.
“We’re a place of people who know what that kind of pain feels like,” Kristin says. “Some of the stories that people open up and tell us, it’s very humbling to be a vessel in that way. That people know that this is a safe space, that they can come and be open with where they're at in whatever battle they’re facing.”
Kristin Martin’s deeply-personal collection of journal entries, originally shared with friends and family through social media during Brady’s battle with cancer, are compiled and published in her emotional book sharing her family’s story, Through the Battle, available to buy on Way to Battle’s website: www.waytobattle.com.
Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at mfitzmaurice@cityscenemediagroup.com.
