A CHANGE IN HOPE
Ben was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of 16 years old. Hope is the one thing that kept his parents, Kevin and Laura moving forward. Hope is what kept them from giving up. His younger sister, Bethany, always kept her sights on the silver lining.
He went through a series of tests and a series of treatment. They discovered that the type of brain tumor he had was the same kind that took the life of his uncle a few years earlier. He underwent surgery that didn’t quite get all the tumor. Then he went through a variety of treatment that included chemo-therapy. Ben never lost his sense of humor or his compassion for other people through the ordeal.
For six months Ben went through that treatment--and then they ran more tests. In the middle of it all they had celebrated his seventeenth birthday. Someone had given them tickets to a Kansas City Chiefs game. They lived their life together and kept hoping.
A month after his surgery, tests showed the tumor coming back. Ten months after he was diagnosed with the brain tumor, Ben died.
Now for some of us that would have been the end of our hope, but not for Kevin and Laura. They have a different kind of hope today. They now hope for that day when they will be reunited with their son, Ben, in heaven. And they set up a special fund to raise money to give to research. They participate in candlelit walks around a high school track, raising money for cancer foundations. And they hope for the day when a better treatment for brain cancer and tumors will be a reality. They hold onto the hope that there will be a day when no other child or adult has to go through what Ben went through.