On December 22nd, 2017, we received the news that would change our lives forever. Our 14 year old son, Micah, was diagnosed with cancer. He had been experiencing symptoms for several weeks prior and was being treated for what our local doctors believed to be a urinary tract infection. After being on antibiotics for several weeks however, his symptoms continued to worsen to the point where we ended up in the emergency room in the early hours of the morning. There they did some scans which revealed a large tumor near his bladder and prostate as well as a small leision in his right lung, which meant that the cancer had already spread. We were sent to Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis, MN where they worked to treat his symptoms and make him a little more comfortable.
He was discharged from the hospital on the afternoon of December 24th with a plan to send him to Mayo Clinic and Hospitals in Rochester, MN where they would biopsy the main tumor. Our Christmas spirit had been dampened but at least we were able to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home as a family before heading to Mayo on December 26th. The biopsy verified that Micah had Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer that primarily affects children and adolescents. This is what the staff at Children’s had predicted, but now it was official.
At the beginning of January, he began what should have been a forty week treatment plan including chemotherapy and radiation. Unfortunately, after seven months, before he had completed the planned chemo treatments, we found out that his cancer had spread and had become resistant to the chemo. We were still holding on to hope for a miracle cure, a procedure that could potentially save his life, but a cure was not in his future. We lost our sweet boy to the bully we call cancer on August 3, 2018 when he was just 15 years old. Now, we are trying to learn how to live our lives without him.
Grieving Mama 