LDL. “Today Took the Breath Right Out of Me” — Will Roberts’ PET Scan Leaves Family Waiting on MRI 🙏💔

Thursday afternoon brought a kind of news no parent is ever ready to face.

In a raw and emotional update shared around 5 p.m. Central Time, Brittney Roberts described what it felt like to see her son Will’s PET scan results being read earlier in the day—results connected to his ongoing battle with bone cancer that has already spread.

“Today took the breath right out of me,” Brittney wrote. “Seeing the actual PET scan… seeing with my own eyes just how far this cancer has spread… it was numbing.”

For families walking through pediatric cancer, there’s the emotional pain of hearing medical updates—and then there’s the kind of pain that comes from seeing it. A scan doesn’t speak, but it tells a story. And in Brittney’s words, today’s story was one she has feared since the beginning.

And yet, even while describing that numbness, she held onto the one thing she says has carried her through every step:

“But even in this,” she wrote, “my God is still BIGGER.”

A heavy wait for the next answer: the MRI

As painful as the PET scan moment was, the family says the next hours are now filled with a different kind of dread: waiting to learn whether Will’s back pain could be tied to something pressing toward his spinal cord.

“We are now waiting on an MRI,” Brittney explained, “to see if the pain in Will’s back is from a spot that may be pressing toward his spinal cord.”

Just typing that, she admitted, made her feel sick.

The word “MRI” can sound routine to outsiders. But when you’re a parent watching your child fight cancer, an MRI can feel like a doorway—either toward relief and reassurance, or toward decisions no parent wants to imagine making.

And waiting for that kind of answer is its own form of suffering.

“We’re sitting here in this long, heavy wait,” Brittney wrote, “and all I feel is numbness mixed with a mother’s fear you can’t put into words.”

So she did what she says she has learned to do in moments where words fail:

“I pray.”

A prayer for miracles—and for meaningful days

Brittney’s message moved between heartbreak and faith in a way that felt painfully honest. She prayed for a miracle, she said—but she also prayed for something many families quietly fear they’ll someday need to ask for.

“I pray for a miracle,” she wrote, “and if God chooses not to move in the way we hope, then I pray just as boldly for the sweetest, most quality-filled days until the end.”

Her words weren’t about giving up. They were about love—about wanting Will’s days to be filled with life, laughter, mobility, and moments that matter. Days where he can still feel like himself. Days where the people around him can still feel the light he continues to give, even while he is hurting.

That kind of prayer is one that makes people stop scrolling. Because it’s not polished. It’s not performative. It’s the kind of truth that only comes from living inside the unthinkable.

“The hardest part is looking at a child so full of life…”

Brittney described what many parents of seriously ill children find hardest to explain: the contrast between how a child appears and what is happening inside their body.

“The hardest part now is this,” she wrote: “looking at a child so full of life, so full of joy, so full of Will, while knowing he’s being eaten up by something we can’t see.”

That sentence captures a terrifying reality: that a child can laugh, smile, and look like themselves—and still be in a battle that is raging underneath the surface.

It also captures the fragility of time. Brittney spoke of how quickly the quality of days can change, and how that knowledge can break a parent’s heart even while they’re watching their child climb, smile, and move.

Gratitude for what they still have: mobility, laughter, memories

In the same breath, Brittney shared something that, in her eyes, is still a gift worth naming out loud: Will’s ability to move again.

“But then I look at him,” she wrote, “climbing ladders, smiling, walking again, and I thank God for giving him back his mobility. For giving us more memories.”

For many families in this kind of fight, gratitude doesn’t mean everything is okay. It means they are noticing the miracles that still exist inside the pain: a good hour, a strong step, a smile, a moment of normal.

It means they are collecting memories like treasure, because they know how quickly a day can change.

“We don’t know what tomorrow brings…”

Brittney’s update ended the way so many faith-filled updates end—not with certainty, but with trust.

“We don’t know what tomorrow brings,” she wrote, “but we know Who holds it.”

Until God says “No,” she explained, they plan to live “wide open”—full of purpose, love, and gratitude for every single breath.

She asked people to keep praying:

• For peace
• For strength
• For a miracle
• For beautiful days ahead
• And for good news on the MRI so difficult decisions are not needed

And then she closed with words that feel like a family motto at this point in the journey:

“Marching forth, even today.”

How to support Will

The update included a request from supporters: please continue praying and sending encouragement to Will and his family.

(As always, if you’re sharing addresses or fundraising links publicly, consider whether you want them posted openly or shared privately in comments/messages for safety.)

For now, the family is waiting. Waiting for the MRI. Waiting for answers. Waiting for the next step.

And in that waiting, they are doing what they’ve been doing all along:

Holding on to faith.
Holding on to each other.
And holding on to Will—one breath at a time.