Last year I wrote about my son Owen and his battle with Pediatric Folicular Lymphoma.  Next week marks the two year anniversary of him going into emergency surgery and the diagnosis of cancer.  May 30, 2018 he was officially in remission and the overall prognosis going forward is nothing but positive.

The story doesn’t quite end there though.  As I stated in the original article, Owen and school were not a good mix.  He hated school, he hated his teachers (except for a couple of wonderful people), he fought every day to not go.  This had been going on since early elementary and, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t have much hope that he’d even be able to get out of high school.

During his chemotherapy he was a true champion.  No complaints, took everything in stride and seemed to have dealt with it very well.  Looks can be deceiving though.  As the summer progressed and into the the 2018-2019 school year, his attitude changed, he became even more antagonistic towards school and teachers and in October things got really dark.  Mentally he was not in a good place and we had to take him into the ER because we were afraid for him.  We’ve come to realize this was most likely a PTSD thing with everything from the first half of the year finally catching up to him.  No child should have to face their own mortality and the older the child the more they understand what is happening and how close they may have come.

This event has turned out to be a turning point for him and all of us.  Move forward to 2019 and the second half of the school year and into his freshman year of high school and Owen has completely turned things around.  He’s happy again and he’s crushing it at school (not straight A’s or anything but by god he’s working hard and trying).  He’s taken drivers education (he’s currently 15), passed the first part on the first try, he’s with friends at school and at home, he’s a completely different kid and my wife and I couldn’t be happier.  For the first time since he was a little child, my boy is back!  Man, as I’m writing this I’ve got tears.

So, to anyone and everyone reading this, I just want to say, and I know it sounds cliche, but no matter how bad things get and how it may seem it will never end or get better, there IS light at the end of every tunnel.  It may not always be what you expect or when you expect but you must keep up hope.

Thank you all for your support through all  of this.