ST.From Struggle to Strength: Natty’s Journey of Overcoming Rare Challenges and Finding Joy

The morning it all began carried the deceptive calm of an ordinary day. Five-year-old Kohen tumbled out of bed with messy hair and sleepy giggles, padding across the cool tile floor of his Nevada home. He asked for blueberries for breakfast, chased his toy cars in uneven circles, and begged his siblings to play with him before school. To his parents, Pattison and Courtney, life felt simple — filled with warm chaos, sticky hands, and bedtime battles. They believed their biggest worries were scraped knees and sibling arguments. But life has a way of shifting in a single heartbeat. On November 15, 2019, their world stopped.

It started with a subtle ache in Kohen’s leg. First a complaint, then a limp, and then a sharp pain no small child could hide. Tests followed — X-rays, scans, the cold precision of medical machines. And then came the diagnosis that shattered the air around them: osteosarcoma. Bone cancer. Courtney sobbed until she couldn’t breathe, while Pattison stood in stunned silence, hearing words like “chemotherapy,” “surgery,” and “amputation” as though they were knives rather than syllables.

Hospitals soon replaced playgrounds. Chemotherapy replaced playdates. In those sterile hallways, their bright, curious boy became a tiny warrior. Tubes curled around his arms, monitors blinked above him, and the harsh odor of antiseptic clung to everything. On the first day of treatment, Kohen looked up and smiled bravely, but the side effects were merciless — vomiting, exhaustion, hair falling in soft handfuls into Courtney’s palms. Yet even in pain, he cracked jokes, made silly faces at nurses, and asked whether superheroes ever needed naps.

His parents held themselves together for him, and then fell apart at night. Pattison would sit in the car outside the hospital, head pressed to the steering wheel, whispering prayers that felt desperate and raw. Courtney, sleeping on a narrow cot beside her son’s bed, often cried silently into the dark, mourning the carefree childhood slipping through her fingers.

Then came the moment that nearly broke them. On the second day of chemotherapy, as Kohen lay in bed, his weakened bone — already hollowed by the tumor — snapped. His scream tore through the ward. Nurses rushed in; doctors stabilized him; Pattison and Courtney stood helpless, watching their boy writhe in agony. Later, when the shock settled, Pattison wrote in his blog, “It could have happened at home. But it didn’t. God made it happen here, where he could be helped. Even pain can be mercy.”

Months passed, each day blurring into the next. The hospital became their second home. Courtney stayed with Kohen; Pattison shuttled back and forth to care for their other children. Video calls became lifelines, and Kohen — ever determined — would flex his little muscles on the screen and say, “I’m still strong.”

By February 2020, after endless nights and countless prayers, they received good news: the tumor had shrunk. But with it came the next impossible step — rotationplasty. A surgery so rare and strange that Pattison could barely comprehend it at first. They would remove the diseased portion of Kohen’s leg, rotate the lower half 180 degrees, and attach it so his ankle could function as a new knee. It sounded surreal, frightening, and miraculous all at once. But it offered something precious: the chance for Kohen to walk again.

The surgery date was set just thirteen days before his sixth birthday. Courtney explained it softly to her son — “The doctors are fixing your leg so you can play again.” But alone at night, she whispered trembling prayers into her pillow. Pattison admitted he had built a wall around his heart to survive the fear. “Nothing prepares you for watching your child hurt,” he wrote. “It’s a different kind of helplessness.”

The day before surgery, they kissed their other children goodbye and drove to Utah. Their house fell silent, toys untouched. At 7:30 a.m. on March 5th, Kohen squeezed his parents’ hands and whispered, “See you soon.” Twelve long hours later, the surgeons emerged with cautious relief: the tumor was gone; the leg was rebuilt; their boy was alive.

Recovery was astonishing. Within days, Kohen began smiling again. By day five, he had transitioned off IV medications; by week two, he was completely off painkillers. “Less than two weeks after they rebuilt his leg,” Pattison wrote in awe, “he was off everything. A miracle.”

Physical therapists marveled. Nurses beamed. Kohen, on a walker, pushed himself farther down the hallway than anyone expected, shouting, “I can do it myself!” His stay at the Ronald McDonald House brought moments of joy — playing with other children, sharing snacks, and lighting up every room he entered.

Six days after surgery, he was discharged. Back home, his sixth birthday was a celebration of survival. Gifts poured in — from neighbors, strangers, police officers, even SWAT teams. One anonymous officer mailed a medal with a note: “You’re fighting harder than I ever did.”

Another eighteen weeks of chemotherapy followed. More nausea. More exhaustion. But Kohen kept smiling. He teased nurses, played catch, demanded blueberries, and held onto a hope bigger than any pain.

The day he rang the victory bell, the hallway erupted in cheers. Pattison lifted him high and whispered, “You did it, warrior.”

Learning to walk with his prosthetic leg was another battle — full of falls, frustration, and fierce determination. But Kohen rose each time, saying proudly, “I can do hard things.” And one afternoon, Courtney watched from the porch as her son ran across the yard, the sun bouncing off his brace. She cried as she watched him move freely again, each step a quiet miracle.

Years later, his scars remain — reminders not of pain, but of victory. Asked what he remembers most, Kohen doesn’t mention the fear, the pain, or the surgeries. He simply grins and says, “I remember everyone cheering when I stood up.”

And somehow, that feels like the truest ending — a small boy, brave beyond comprehension, standing against all odds, proving that even in darkness, light can rise again.