UPDATE: The pathology results are back, and they brought the answer this South Texas family has been praying for.
UPDATE: The pathology results are back, and they brought the answer this South Texas family has been praying for.
No active disease was found.
When I first shared 10-year-old Uriah’s story last month, he was facing Stage IV Large B-Cell Lymphoma and an enormous 14-centimeter tumor on his left kidney.
His cancer journey had already taken so much from him.
Chemotherapy left this once constantly active little boy needing a walker and wheelchair, and pneumonia nearly took his life during a 32-day hospitalization that included six days on a ventilator.
But there was still one major question his family couldn’t answer.
The tumor on Uriah’s kidney had dramatically shrunk, but it was still showing signs of activity, and his left kidney was functioning at only five percent.
So on August 14, surgeons removed the kidney and the remaining mass.
His family says what was expected to involve four small incisions became a difficult surgery lasting roughly seven hours. Because surgeons had trouble accessing the kidney, Uriah ultimately needed a much larger abdominal incision.
Then came another wait, this time for pathology to tell them whether cancer was still hiding inside what doctors removed.
On Wednesday, they finally got the results:
No active disease was found.
Uriah will continue his maintenance treatment, and his family says he still has weeks of healing ahead and roughly two months before he is fully recovered from surgery.
But after everything this little boy has survived, this is a victory worth celebrating.
His mom, Sammy, reached back out to me with a message for everyone who has prayed for her son:
“Keep on praying, keep the faith no matter what bump comes along the way. God is true to his word.”
And throughout the moments when the adults around him became scared, Sammy says it was often Uriah who reminded them where he placed his trust.
“Who do you trust in?”
That question carried this 10-year-old through Stage IV cancer, chemotherapy, a ventilator, the loss of a kidney and seven hours of surgery.
Today, his pathology says no active disease was found.
For everyone who prayed for Uriah of Poteet, Texas, when I first introduced you to him, his family wants you to know those prayers never stopped mattering.
Now maybe we can fill the comments with something Uriah and his family have waited a long time to hear:
Congratulations, buddy. Keep healing. And keep the faith.
