Next week, 18-year-old Eli Rivera was supposed to be moving into his college dorm.
Next week, 18-year-old Eli Rivera was supposed to be moving into his college dorm.
Instead, he’s moving into a hospital room in San Antonio, Texas to begin the fight of his life.
His uncle Juan reached out to me hoping we could all surround his nephew with prayers as a future that seemed so certain just weeks ago has suddenly been put on hold.
Eli recently graduated from high school.
He was preparing to attend Texas A&M–Kingsville this fall to study Civil Engineering.
College.
New friends.
A dorm room.
A degree.
All those things an 18-year-old should be thinking about right now.
Then about a month ago, Eli started feeling sick.
His family initially had no idea it was anything that could completely change their lives.
Doctors and tests eventually delivered the diagnosis they never expected:
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL.
And suddenly, the bags Eli’s family thought they would be packing for college became part of a completely different journey.
He is now in San Antonio at Methodist Hospital receiving treatment.
I keep thinking about the timing.
Across Texas right now, parents are helping their kids load cars and shop for dorm rooms.
They’re taking those first-day pictures.
They’re trying not to cry when they finally drive away and leave their child at college.
Eli and his family were supposed to be doing those same things.
Instead, they are learning about leukemia.
Treatment.
Hospital stays.
And what it means to watch an 18-year-old who loves football and soccer suddenly have to fight for the future he was preparing to begin.
But his family wants everyone to know something:
They are not giving up on that future.
They still see Eli walking onto that college campus.
They still see him studying Civil Engineering.
They still see him laughing with his friends, playing the sports he loves and eventually living the life he had planned before cancer interrupted it.
And one line his family shared with me really got me:
“This is only the beginning of Eli’s story.”
For now, though, an 18-year-old needs an army.
