From Brooke: 

Oh where do I begin, this post isn’t easy to make but I know the word is getting out more and more as we as a family seek guidance, courage and strength.

For the last couple months Maddox has been complaining of stomach pain on and off, so I would ask him all the parent questions but also as a parent, he would complain about his stomach hurting then would go outside and play so I would just brush it off! But about a month or so now, I started observing him more; still complaining about his stomach but now im starting to notice him not wanting to play outside and he was starting to want to just lay in bed, personally I was thinking of depression and had even talked to Jacob about my concerns and thinking maybe I should start taking him to a counselor. Again still observing him, I notice he wasn’t eating like normal still eating but not his normal portions. July 11th he come home from vacation, we went to CJ’s for supper and he had told me that he had already eaten supper I didn’t question him bc he did get home around 7:30 but when we had gotten home and getting everyone ready for bed I noticed Maddox was very hot to the touch so I had asked if he wanted Tylenol, he said yes then was also complaining about his stomach again. We went to bed and when he woke up, I asked if he was feeling better, he said yes but his stomach was still hurting a little but his cousins were home and we were going to my brother in laws father’s celebration of life. We went but Maddox didn’t want to sit inside because it was too cold we were there for a couple of hrs and he walked in looking miserable so I asked if he was ready to go and to no surprise he was so we said good bye everyone. As we were walking to the car I asked him if he wanted to go to the ER and he immediately said yes.. we went home changed clothes and we headed to Coldwater ER. They ran all the test you could think; bloodwork, strep, Covid and mono. His bloodwork came back concerning so they wanted to do a CT scan, CT scan came back concerning so they pulled me out to talk, they explained to me his liver and spleen were both enlarged and could also see his lymph nodes were as well and that they were wanting to transport him to Dayton Children’s so within 30/45mins we were being transported to Dayton! He was admitted for 3 days, with more scans and then having a biopsy of one of his lymph nodes and a bone marrow abstraction! We were sent home after his procedure which was awful because then the waiting game seemed like It last months but Thursday July 24th we got the call that our sweet Maddox has been diagnosed with Classic Hodgkin Lymphoma! This past Monday he had a PET scan done and Wednesday we had a meeting with his oncologist, we were told then that he is Stage 4 but we do have a course of action/treatment plan and they want to get the ball rolling in this coming week. He has an EKG and echo scheduled for tomorrow and a consultation with the surgeon to who will be placing his port!

* if your child is a friend of Maddox’s and you just don’t know how to explain to your child what is going on! Please reach out and I would love to talk with them! Also we are asking if you are telling your child please when they are talking to Maddox about it, it’s Lymphoma! Cancer to most of us is negative and we want to keep his thought process more positive!

Please pray and/or continue to pray for Maddox as he enters this journey! We know God is good and this is suppose to be apart of his story! As a parent all the questions run through my head but I will lean on God to help us all through these hard times!