April 19, 2026
Last Sunday evening, we were snuggling our boy tighter than we ever have before. We were watching the clock knowing that every tick put us closer to his surgery. We certainly weren’t sleeping.
Morning came, and it was go-time.
We went from holding and protecting our baby, to handing him over to his anesthesia team who walked him away from us and into the operating room.
We watched the clock for five hours. We went on walks. We cried. We laughed. We leaned on each other.
Finally the operating room called. Surgery was over and the surgeon was ready to meet with us. Our family locked arms and followed him into a tiny consult room where he told us that he was unable to remove much of the tumor like planned, but he did remove enough to send for a biopsy.
Charlie’s tumor is located at the brain stem, and has grown from the size of a pea to almost the size of a golf ball in just a month’s time.
Preliminary pathology results show that he has a Grade 4 tumor – the most aggressive type. Not the results we were praying for.
Final results will be available next week, which will determine next steps. Another week of praying and peading to God. Another week of acting strong and brave to protect his big sister. Another week of denial.
We are fighting for our boy. He is beautiful. He is so brave. And he is already making such an impact in this big world.
We are so thankful for his medical team. They aren’t just doing their job – they truly love our boy. They hang out in his hospital room on their time off, they make us footprint crafts, they laugh with us and they cry with us. It feels like we’ve known and loved them forever.
If love alone was enough to cure him, he would never step foot inside a hospital ever again.
