Community rallies for child battling leukemia

When Gus and Holly Somerfeld hosted Thanksgiving at their East Helena home last fall, their son Otto had just celebrated his first birthday. By the end of the night, he was running a fever.

The illness worsened over the coming days and at 3 a.m. on Nov. 30, Holly rushed him to the emergency room while Gus stayed home with their elder son, three-year-old LeRoy. 

Blood work flagged abnormalities, and after days of tests at St. Peter’s Hospital – and a blood sample sent to a national lab for confirmation – the diagnosis came back Dec. 2. Otto had acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive blood and bone marrow cancer.