Lord willing, today is Kohen’s final day of chemo treatments. His ordeal, however, is not completely over, as we await test results to determine if the cancer has metastasized. There will be many more tests and examinations over the coming months and years of our little boy’s life, but today we rejoice—at least for the moment—that he has wrapped up the past nine months of this arduous journey, and completed his final round of chemotherapy.

What follows is Courtney’s update:

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November 15th, 2019 seems like an eternity ago. That was the day my world was wrecked. That was the day that I felt a heartache I had never experienced in all my life—one that took my breath away and left me broken.

Looking back, I remember desperately wanting to fix it. I didn’t care what it cost, what it would take, just fix it. And yet I couldn’t. The only thing I could do was trust God. The weeks that followed only got harder. We were already trying to keep our heads above water with learning about Kohen’s diagnosis, traveling to Utah, starting chemotherapy, taking care of home life with 5 other children, and then Kohen broke his leg, making this trial ten fold what it already was.

This was the beginning of an entirely new trial—learning how to move him without causing pain, learning how to manage his pain, obtaining medical equipment to help us manuever it all. As if all of these trials weren’t enough, he would occasionally get life threatening fevers following chemo, requiring more time in the hospital and more time away from the family.

After what seemed like an eternity, we made it through the first 12 weeks of chemo and were now ready for surgery. That day arrived and it was sheer torture. Most people go into a surgery and just come out “fixed” on the other side. But our son wasn’t just going to have his leg fixed, he was going to be forever changed. Forever defined by this decision, and it was shocking. Forever people will see him differently. They will see him as the kid with the backwards foot, or the prosthetic leg. People will always be questioning his ability. Will he be able to perform the way others do? Can he keep up? Can he work? Why would his parents do that to him?

While working through the process of getting his prosthetic (and him learning how to use it) we still had 18 more weeks of chemo to complete. It was following one of these chemo treatments that Kohen spiked a fever and had to be taken to the hospital. And still, God proved faithful (that was the night Kohen never received the medicine from the hospital staff that he needed, an error that could have cost his life).

Over the past 8-1/2 months, we have cried buckets and buckets of tears. We have realized misplaced priorities. We have had our eyes opened to a cancer world that we never knew existed. We have seen God answer prayers, opening and closing doors along the way. It has been a long and sorrow-filled path, but it is finally coming to an end.

Today is the last day Kohen will spend in room 418. He won’t be coming back for a late night fever or another chemo treatment. Today, we celebrate! We are overjoyed to be concluding this nightmare and at the same time filled with angst over the scans that will be performed in just a few short hours to see if there is any visible cancer somewhere else in his body. The results of those scans will either bring us great peace, or an even heavier sorrow.

“This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.“ Psalm 118:24

Please join us in rejoicing for making it through this trial in our lives and give thanks to God, the one who gave us the strength to endure to the end.

Thank you to all of you for your support through this journey, and please remain in prayer with my wife and me for Kohen’s continued progress and improved health.