Before you can even process it, a bomb drops on your life. In an instant, everything you had planned—everything you dreamed of—is gone. The bomb is cancer.

How can this be real? How is this our life?

Your sweet, amazing 3-year-old has cancer. Brain cancer.

You find yourself on the floor of a hospital waiting room, breathless, waiting for him to come out of a craniotomy. You don’t know if he’ll wake up—if he’ll talk, walk, or simply be.

Then comes the waiting. Agonizing, days pass until the pathology results arrive. And then, another blow—an aggressive grade 3 ependymoma.

You go home to heal, whatever that means. You wander through the grocery store, trying to remember how to live in a world that hasn’t stopped moving—while you feel completely still.

And then it’s time to return to the place that both saved your child and shattered your heart. It’s time to treat your innocent little boy, knowing the treatment could cause long-term damage… or even more cancer. But there is no choice—not really. You choose to fight. You choose to give him a chance—to thrive, to grow, to live.

Eventually, you come home. Life resumes. Work, school, activities return. But nothing feels normal. And the truth is, nothing will ever be normal again.

There is life before, and life after, and the space between the two becomes a permanent marker on your soul.

So, you move forward, building a new version of life. And here's the honest truth: the best days—the happiest, most joy-filled days—remind you the most of cancer. Because even while you are smiling and laughing during a round of miniature golf, you realize these are the days that almost never happened.

Scan days. Doctor days. They still freeze you in place, stuck in the numb rhythm of survival.

Time moves on. Life carries forward. But the reminders linger everywhere.

And now—it’s time to sign your child up for kindergarten. A moment that should be pure joy. And it is—you are beyond blessed to reach this milestone.

But then the questions come. The ones about his cancer… and you find yourself choking back tears in the school gym.

Because this journey will forever follow our sweet boy. It will always live in us. It has completely changed us.

But through it all, one thing remains unshakable—our love, and our hearts, forever committed to fighting for our amazing son. Because this is a forever fight. And we are in it. Always.

We are so incredibly blessed to have PCFLV by our side since the very day our world was shattered by the word cancer. They’ve supported us through every step of this journey—holding our hands on both the good days and the darkest ones. Their love, support, and unwavering community have meant more than words can ever express. We are forever grateful.

Written by Cameron’s mom, Cara

Please consider helping children with cancer and others in our community by scheduling a blood donation at Miller-Keystone Blood Center: https://donor.giveapint.org/donor/schedules/zip