Pray

Here it is, after midnight, and I'm sitting here crying. There's a little boy whose family goes to my old church (where my parents still go) who has cancer, neuroblastoma. He'll be 4 in June and he's had cancer since just after his second birthday.

I remember the first time I saw the little boy. It was before the cancer and he was toddling around. His family had just started going to our church. I immediately noticed him because he has bright red hair. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. It was before Matt and I were TTC, but I always dreamed about our future children even then. I looked at this little boy and thought, "that's what our future son will look like." I felt so strongly that I would have a baby like him. I remember watching the little boy after the church service. He was running around and into everything. His parents were young and chased after him with smiles on their faces. I just kept thinking how precious it was and how I couldn't wait to have a baby of my own to chase after.

And then they found out that beautiful baby boy had cancer. I've followed their journey closely, even though I've only talked to them a couple of times before. I feel like I have a connection just because of the time I watched the red headed boy playing. Not long after he was diagnosed I wrote on their support webpage guestbook. I said:

"Even though Matt and I have never officially met you, we are praying for your family everyday. We always enjoy seeing Carter in church with his beautiful red hair (Matt has red hair, too!). You are all an incredible example of trusting God and relying on His strength even though it is so hard sometimes."

That was in June 2008.

I've continued to read their journal entries on their support webpage. They update a couple of times a week at least, through the good times and the bad. I've read as Carter lost his red hair, went to Disney World, spent weeks at a time in the hospital, played with the visitor dogs, undergone surgeries and chemo, and got up out of bed time and time again to play and laugh.

Things haven't been looking too good lately though. He had a relapse last Spring, and children who have a relapse of this type of cancer have a very low survival rate. He has been in an experimental treatment plan the past few months, but a little while ago it became obvious it wasn't working, so he was removed from the program. His parents never say they are giving up though. They continue to have hope and pray for a recovery, but it is obvious that the doctors don't believe their son is going to make it.

They wrote a post a few hours ago saying they are taking their son back to the hospital because he's been doing very badly all weekend. The nurses who visited their home earlier were talking about admitting the little boy to a hospice. Things are not looking good at all. My heart is aching. No child deserves this. It's bad enough that little ones have to die, but it shouldn't be this painful, this drawn out. He's a toddler, he should be a little ball of energy that depletes his mom's energy at the end of every day. It shouldn't be his energy that is depleted after a few minutes of just sitting up.

Please, please pray for this boy!! Pray for his family, but especially pray that he will be healed!! There's no words to describe the horror of this situation, unfortunately I'm sure many of you have known people in similar situations though. I just feel like I need to share this with as many people as possible so that even if you only say one short prayer, at least that will be a few prayers more that reach the Lord and show him how his people can come together for others. How even people who aren't Christians can still pray for this child.