Big decisions.
He was supposed to be upstairs changing, but when he didn’t come down, Chris went up to figure out what was going on.
There he laid, face down, under his bed.
The kid that is deathly afraid of needles and anything medical now has an enormous decision to make. The life of his twin brother hinges on his ability and courage to face his biggest fears.
Blake is a 10/10 match for Brady as a bone marrow transplant donor. He is by far Brady’s “best chance” at making a recovery from this chemo-resistant cancer, but it isn’t a cut and dry decision. Blake has to come face to face with so many things he is terrified of.
The weight of this decision is just so much.
On one hand, Blake can’t muster up the courage to do it and we are left scrambling to find someone else to save Brady’s life.
One another hand, Blake has the courage to do it and everything goes as planned and Brady recovers perfectly and it becomes something that binds them together forever. Something we laugh about together when they are 40. This. This is what we are praying for.
Then, there is another angle. The one we don’t want to think about. The one where Blake finds the courage and strength to be Brady’s donor, but for a number of reasons the transplant fails and we lose Brady. Then, we are left with a brother who, for the rest of his life, will have lies spit to him that it was somehow his fault.
This is heavy, friends.
We believe Blake is going to get there, he is almost there already, but we don’t want to pressure him in any way. We don’t want our pressure to be a weight that he ever had to carry. Yes, his brother’s life hangs in the balance which makes the urgency for a decision so critical, but he is nine. It has to be in God’s timing, not ours. This decision is the biggest thing he has ever faced. All we can do is pray. Pray for him to find the courage to conquer his fears.
At the end of the day, we believe Blake wanting to save Brady will far out way any fear he may have. His love for his brother is just incredible to see. Right now though, we are trying to give him the time and space to pray it through on his own.
Tonight he said to me, “mom, I’ve been praying a lot. I think I’m going to do it. I think God wants me to do it for Brady.”
I started to cry and said, “buddy. That is so great. That courage would make you a hero. Because you are a perfect match, you know you would be Brady’s best chance.” I had to pause before I continued though.
“But Blake, it doesn’t mean everything is going to go according to plan.” Tears rolled down my cheeks, “even with you as a perfect match, we could still lose Brady.” I looked him straight in the eye and said, “that would never be your fault. I need you to know that if you decide to do it.”
His eyes were welled up with tears too.
“I just can’t lose him, mom.”
“I know buddy, I don’t want to lose him either.”
Courage.
Peace.
Strength.
Lord heal all the broken things and bind any fear within us. Give us the courage to get through each day. Let us be filled with your peace so that we will not be shaken by the waves. Grant us with the strength to continue to fight even when we have reached the end of our rope.
When our rope ends, Yours begins.
We requested an extra week before we start the preparation chemo before the transplant. Unfortunately, they feel that Brady is in too critical of a place to delay. Tuesday morning he will be admitted to NCH to begin his 28-day targeted chemo therapy.
I’m still in this weird place of where I can’t believe this is where we are at. He looks and feels so good you would hardly know he was sick most of the time. But this “ticking time bomb” within him is only at bay. So now, we begin to pray for protection over his body during these high dose treatments like never before.
Lord, you, and you alone, control this outcome. We trust you. Show us the way…
“A voice is calling,
“Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness;
Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.
“Let every valley be lifted up,
And every mountain and hill be made low;
And let the rough ground become a plain,
And the rugged terrain a broad valley;
Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
And all flesh will see it together”
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