Daniel started having headaches and some gait changes along with anger and just altogether personality changes, through out 2016. I just thought it was because he had just turned 13 and all hormonal. The headaches, at all times but nighttime was the worse, they would wake him up he would vomit and scream in pain, lasting anywhere from 1 minutes to a couple hours, that scared me. 

His pediatrician ordered an MRI. On December 23rd 2016, that’s when we found out he had a brain tumor. It was growing rapidly, it was the size of a golf ball located in his cerebellum close to his brain stem. He couldn’t have surgery for 2 weeks because there was tot much fluid surrounding it. So he started a high dose steroids to refuse the fluid. Surgery went very well and the surgeon was able to remove the entire tumor. Daniel thankfully didn’t have any side effects from the surgery, even though we were warned of the possibilities. 

So we started the waiting game, what type of cancer is it? Medulloblastoma was the outcome, lots of testing and another biopsy later, and after a port placement, he started 30 days of intense brain and spine radiation, along with weekly IV and oral chemotherapy. Then a short break, to start intense chemotherapy treatment. 

In July of 2018, he was finally declared in remission. No more chemo!! It was a very long long journey and it felt much longer than it actually was. In total Daniel was in the hospital about 250 days, not all in 1 stretch, but long enough that you feel broken at times. Daniel went from a active 13 year old to in a wheelchair with severe foot drop and high frequency hearing loss from chemo. But praise Jesus and Daniel’s will to live! He is back in school now (no wheelchair, no walker, no cane). He is still not 100% but amazingly wonderful and he has maintained A/B honor roll in AP classes his first year back in school since his diagnosis. He is my hero!

Hope session by Lindsay T Photography | Facebook | Instagram