Jose loves Toy Story, monster trucks, gymnastics, soccer, and hanging out with his siblings. He is charming and loves to tell jokes. He is such an amazing kiddo, he is loving and awesome and has been so brave throughout the last year.
In September 2017, Jose went from a healthy happy three-year-old to throwing up, crying in pain, and not being able to walk almost overnight. We rushed him to the hospital, and doctors didn’t have any answers; perhaps a stomach bug or dehydration.
After almost a week in the hospital, the answer was found and we heard the words that gutted our world, “it’s cancer.” He was diagnosed with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis, a rare cancer that begins in the Langerhans cells.
Our world stopped; suddenly life was in two phases – before and after cancer. Jose has struggled with terrible sickness, joint pain and headaches. At times he couldn’t walk; other moments he would just silently cry. Through it all, our hero has shown tremendous courage. Jose could not attend school and parents had to flex time at work in order to have childcare in the home.
When Jose was diagnosed he was in foster care, as his foster parents we did all we could to include his bio parents. Jose did not just deal with the trauma of cancer, or the trauma of visits – he dealt with them together. Jose had his last chemo on 9/12/18 and we adopted on 9/13/18 after 3.5 years in foster care.
Hope session by Asea Tremp Photography