BLANCHARDVILLE - "You know how kids suck in their bellies?" said Sundee Syse Runden recently, recalling the day she first discovered something was wrong with her son. It was Sept. 27.

That day, 9-year-old Jaden Goninen, a fourth grader Pecatonica Elementary School, showed her how when he sucked in his belly, one side didn't go in as far. She touched it, compared it to her own stomach. Something was odd. Maybe he's just super constipated, she thought.

But when she took him for a check-up the next day, she could see in the initial reaction from the doctors it was serious.

"That's when the fear really started," she said.

Jaden was diagnosed with Stage 4 Wilms, an advanced cancer of the kidneys that had spread to his lungs. For the past two months, he's been in and out of the hospital, getting the tumors removed, enduring chemotherapy and now radiation - and all the while, he still goes to school as much as he can and inspires his family with his upbeat attitude.

This weekend, Jaden's friends and family have organized benefits at Country Side Lanes in Hollandale to raise money to help pay for his medical bills and the financial toll his sickness has taken on his family. This includes missed time at work and gas mileage for all the trips back and forth between Blanchardville and the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison.

On Friday night, from 6 to 9 p.m., the bowling alley will host a kids' night with open bowling and prizes. There will also be a couple of hair stylists on hand to give $5 buzz cuts - a way of showing solidarity with Jaden, who is bald from his chemotherapy treatments.

"Anyone who gets a haircut gets put in the raffle," said Tyler Goninen, Jaden's 23-year-old brother. He's already buzzed his hair to show his support for his younger brother.

Starting at 10:30 a.m. Saturday and going into the evening, Country Side Lanes is hosting tournament bowling, a silent auction and more raffles. The Green Field Brothers Band will play from 2 to 5 p.m., with a DJ spinning tunes into the night after that. The last bowling tournament begins at 7:30 p.m.

Watching his little brother go through this life-threatening ordeal has been humbling for Tyler Goninen. Last year, Tyler spent a month in the hospital for a brain surgery and remembers feeling depressed the whole time.

"It just sucked," he said. Jaden, on the other hand, hasn't let disease bring him down. "He's up there every day, laughing and joking with the nurses. He's a strong kid."

Halle, a girl in Jaden's class who had cancer, visited him in the hospital with her whole family, Tyler said. It helped Jaden, especially when Halle's dad talked him through it.

"He really calmed (Jaden) down," Tyler said. "You hear about cancer every day, but you never really know details until someone in your family has it," he said.

Sundee, Jaden's mother, is quick to point out that it is her family and friends who have organized this weekend's benefits, not her: "I'm the person who would rather crawl under a rock."

The past two months have been "overwhelming," she said. She remembers, not long before Jaden was diagnosed, having a discussion with her boss about how bad they felt for parents with seriously ill children.

"We never want to be one of those parents," she said. But, "within 24 hours, our lives change. I am one of those parents."

What's helped Sundee cope, she said, is keeping a public journal on a website set up for Jaden, CaringBridge.org/visit/jadengoninen. She updates it daily and writes at length about Jaden's medical updates, his school projects, his courage. She also doesn't shy away from the occasional comic relief ("He's amusing himself with his farts").

"It's such a great way to communicate with everybody," she said. "In some cases, there's a little more emotion. I try not to make it all doom and gloom.

"He's really been a trouper. We're very fortunate."

She's learned to live day by day in the past two months.

"I don't get excited by what's in the weeks' ahead. It's the 'new normal.'"