TST. Will Roberts’ Family Shares Concerning Update as Ongoing Illness Impacts His Ability to Walk
HOPEFUL UPDATE: New Medical Results Show Progress for Will Roberts
God had answered their prayers.
Not with thunder or sudden certainty, but with a quiet, trembling miracle that arrived through a phone call, a scan result, and the steady voice of an oncologist who had learned to balance hope with truth.
The news that day was not an ending.
It was a pause.
A breath.
A fragile victory in a war that had demanded more from this family than they ever imagined they could give.
For months, hope had felt expensive.
Every scan carried the weight of fear.
Every appointment felt like walking toward a verdict.
But today, something shifted.
The PET scan was positive.
Not perfect.
Not final.
But undeniably, undeniably hopeful.
Doctors at MD Anderson and Children’s of Alabama had both reviewed the results, their conclusions aligning in a way that felt almost sacred.
They agreed the scan showed progress.
They agreed it showed response.
They agreed it was good news in a season where good news had been painfully rare.
There were still two nodes in his lungs.
They had grown.
They were cancer.
That truth landed hard, as it always did.
But the scan revealed something else.
Those nodes were necrotic.
Dead cancer cells.
Cells that once threatened life now showed signs of surrender.
At some point, surgery would be required to remove them.
Another battle awaited.
Another scar would be earned.
But for now, the enemy had weakened.
And that mattered.
More than words could capture.
Then came the news about his right leg.
The skip metastasis that once haunted every conversation, every surgical plan, every what-if scenario.
It was dead.
Completely.
Irrefutably.
The cancer cells there had lost their fight.
Praise filled the room, quiet but overwhelming.
There would be another surgery before leaving MD Anderson to remove the dead tissue.
But the threat itself was gone.
Another answered prayer.
Another moment where fear loosened its grip, if only slightly.
The left leg carried its own miracle.
The skip lesion there was dead as well.
Removed during the rotationplasty.
Gone before it could grow.
Gone before it could complicate the surgery or make it impossible altogether.
Doctors acknowledged what the family already felt in their bones.
Had it grown, everything could have changed.
But it didn’t.
And because of that, the path forward remained open.
Another prayer answered before it even fully formed.
The oncologists reviewed the treatment plan next.
No changes were needed.
The MAP chemotherapy regimen would continue as planned.
Three more months.
Three more months of poison and hope intertwined.
Three more months of exhaustion, nausea, courage, and endurance.
Once released by Dr. Val Lewis, the surgeon who had already changed the course of this child’s life, the journey would continue.
The road ahead remained long.
But it was clearer than it had been in months.
This update did not come from the mother.
It came from the father.
Not because love was divided.
But because roles had quietly formed in the fire.
He was the encourager.
The one who believed before proof arrived.
The glass-half-full soul who searched for light even when shadows crowded the room.
Brittney, his wife, stood differently.
She listened for the “but.”
She braced for the downside even in moments of relief.
Not because she lacked faith.
But because she loved too fiercely to look away from danger.
Together, they balanced.
Together, they survived.
He knew the truth deeply.
Without Brittney beside him, his strength would fracture.
Her caution grounded his hope.
His optimism lifted her fear.
Somehow, through years marked by unimaginable moments, they had learned to carry each other.
He could not imagine a better mother for their children.
Could not imagine walking this road without her hand in his.
And yet, even in this moment of gratitude, the shadow returned.
Stage four cancer never fully releases its grip.
The possibility of recurrence looms constantly.
Anywhere.
Everywhere.
Those statistics remain until five full years of remission are achieved.
And remission itself remains a future promise.
It cannot be claimed until all chemotherapy is complete.
Until the next PET scan shows nothing at all.
Until silence replaces the dark spots.
As he sat in the hospital room, watching his son sleep, gratitude flooded him.
Machines hummed softly.
Lights dimmed gently.
The rise and fall of a small chest reminded him that life persisted.
There had been months where good news felt impossible.
Months where hope seemed cruel.
But after surgery, Will had surpassed every expectation.
Physically.
Mentally.
Spiritually.
If given a goal, he chased it.
If given a boundary, he pushed past it.
Even if only by one step.
That, his father believed, was the posture required to defeat cancer.
Not denial.
Not bravado.
But relentless forward motion.
One step.
One breath.
One victory at a time.
He hoped Will understood what a blessing he was.
To their family.
To strangers.
To everyone watching his journey unfold.
In closing, gratitude overflowed.
For prayers spoken.
For prayers whispered.
For prayers still rising.
The family asked only that they continue.
God might not be finished with them yet.
And that was okay.
They would continue forward.
One step at a time.
Giving Him glory in both triumph and trial.
The dark spots on the scans told a story.
But so did the light surrounding them.
And for the first time in a long while, hope felt real again.
She whispered his name into the quiet of the night.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just enough for heaven to hear.
“Jesus, help me.”
The words slipped from her lips like breath escaping a breaking chest.
She was not praying with polished language or confident faith.
She was praying because she was breaking.
Because she was aching.
Because watching her firstborn child fight through pain was tearing something inside her that she didn’t know how to put back together.
The pain wasn’t loud.
It wasn’t always visible.
But it was relentless.
A pain that had begun to steal something sacred from her son.
The simple ability to walk without fear.
Without weakness.
Without wondering if his body would betray him again tomorrow.
Every step he took now carried uncertainty.
Every movement reminded her that something was wrong.
And that knowledge paralyzed her soul.
She had been strong before.
She had weathered storms, faced fear, survived nights when hope felt thin.
But this night was different.
This night demanded more than she had left to give.
She needed Jesus more than she had in a very long time.
The house was quiet.
Too quiet for a home that once echoed with laughter and running feet.
Photos lined the walls.
Smiling faces.
Bright eyes.
Two healthy children frozen in time.
Anyone looking at those pictures would see joy.
Normalcy.
Blessing.
They would never guess that one of those children was fighting a battle invisible to the eye.
A battle written not in smiles, but in scars.
Scars left behind by a disease that had touched his perfect body.
A body she believed was formed carefully by God’s own hands.
She stared at those photos often.
Wondering how something could look so whole and be so broken at the same time.
Wondering how pain could hide so well behind laughter.
Wondering how a mother could feel so helpless while loving so fiercely.
Her son tried to be brave.
He tried to stay strong.
He tried to protect everyone else from the weight he was carrying.
Especially his brother, Will.
Jason loved Will with a depth that terrified her.
A love that went beyond sibling affection.
A love rooted in responsibility, sacrifice, and quiet devotion.
She watched Jason hold everything together with trembling hands.
She watched him smile when his heart was heavy.
She watched him choose strength even when fear sat beside him.
And the thought of him losing Will stole her breath.
The thought of what that loss would do to his heart was almost unbearable.
She imagined the weight settling into Jason’s chest.
The guilt.
The grief.
The unanswered questions.
And she wondered how a heart could survive something like that.
Sometimes the fear came so suddenly it felt like drowning.
Her chest tightened.
Her thoughts spiraled.
She had to remind herself to breathe.
To stay present.
To trust.
And then there was her mother.
Her mama.
A woman whose love ran deep and steady.
Who showed up every single day without being asked.
Who held Will’s hand with tenderness and strength intertwined.
Who carried pain quietly, the way mothers often do.
Watching her mama love Will was both comforting and devastating.
Because she knew the cost of that love.
She knew the depth of loss her mother would carry if Will were taken.
She saw it in the way her mama’s eyes lingered.
In the way she prayed silently.
In the way she never complained, even when exhaustion showed.
It broke her all over again.
Layer upon layer of fear.
Love stacked upon love.
Pain multiplying through generations.
She felt small in the face of it all.
Fragile.
Unequipped.
And so she returned to the only place she knew to go.
Back to prayer.
Back to surrender.
Back to Jesus.
“Please stay close,” she whispered.
Not because she doubted His presence.
But because she needed to feel it.
She didn’t have the strength to do this alone.
Her family didn’t either.
They needed Him.
They needed something beyond medicine and answers.
They needed a miracle.
She didn’t define what that miracle should look like.
She only knew they couldn’t survive without one.
She asked for peace.
Not the kind that ignores reality.
But the kind that settles into the heart despite it.
A peace only Jesus could give.
A peace that didn’t erase fear but softened its grip.
She longed for blessed assurance.
The quiet confidence that no matter what happened, they were not alone.
That suffering was not the end of the story.
That love would not be wasted.
That God was still near.
Again she whispered it.
“Jesus, help me.”
She was breaking.
She was aching.
But somewhere beneath the weight of her fear, hope flickered.
Not loud.
Not certain.
But alive.
And for now, that was enough to keep her breathing.
