LS ‘Four Days Before Christmas, Another Blow: Austin’s Fight Against a Relentless Leukemia’

Four days before Christmas, Austin’s family took another punch they never saw coming.

For most families, the days leading up to the holidays are filled with plans—quiet shopping trips, last-minute wrapping, small traditions that make the season feel warm. But for Vanessa and her son Austin, the calendar has looked nothing like that for a long time. Their “plans” are lab results, hospital admissions, and the kind of phone calls that can change everything in seconds.

Austin was only 16 when their world first cracked open.

In June 2023, he was diagnosed with high-risk Philadelphia-like B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. The words alone were terrifying. But what followed was worse: an intense, punishing road of treatment that kept stealing pieces of his teenage life.

Since that diagnosis, Austin has endured what no teenager should ever have to endure—lumbar punctures that left him sore and drained, bone marrow biopsies that brought both pain and dread, transfusions, medication changes, endless blood draws, and long hospital stays that blurred together until time stopped feeling normal. School, friends, freedom, simple routines—so much of it got replaced by hospital corridors and waiting rooms.

And still, he fought.

Like so many families living in the cancer world, Austin’s family learned to live in tiny windows of hope. They celebrated “stable” lab results like victories. They learned the language of counts, neutrophils, scans, protocols—terms most people never have to understand. They marked life not by seasons, but by treatment cycles.

In September, it finally felt like a turning point.

They thought they were getting closer to the moment every family dreams of: a corner turned, a clearer path forward. But then routine labs turned into a devastating phone call.

Relapse.

Just like that, the ground shifted again. Six more weeks in the hospital. Treatment restarted. The plan changed overnight. But even in the chaos, they grabbed onto something to keep them steady: a bone marrow transplant.

A transplant meant possibility. It meant a new chance. It meant that maybe—finally—this nightmare could have an ending.

They held onto that hope with everything they had.

Then, in December, the day before Austin was supposed to be admitted for the next step, the floor fell out from under them again.

The cancer had relapsed again—this time mutated.

Not only was it back, it was spreading and clustering in places that made everything feel even more frightening: his jaw and his testicles. The transplant was postponed. The path forward, once again, became uncertain.

For a family who had already survived so much, this wasn’t just “bad news.” It was the kind of blow that makes you question how much more a person can take.

At just 18, Austin now needs help with basic daily care—bathing, dressing, simply getting through the day. Things most teenagers do without thinking now require support, time, patience, and strength he shouldn’t have to summon. His body is fighting a disease that refuses to play fair, and the toll isn’t only physical. It’s emotional. It’s exhausting. It’s the kind of fatigue that sleep doesn’t fix.

And Vanessa is watching it all.

She’s watching her son be knocked down over and over again. Watching him try to hold onto dignity while his independence slips away. Watching him face pain and fear with a bravery that no mother ever wants to see her child need.

She’s bracing for the next update. Relearning how to hope after every setback. Living in that awful space between “we can’t give up” and “we’re terrified of what’s coming.”

This family is asking for prayers—desperately.

And for help—humbly.

Because fighting cancer this long doesn’t just drain a body. It drains a family. It drains savings, energy, stability, and the ability to breathe without waiting for the next crisis. It turns ordinary life into survival mode, day after day, month after month, year after year.

Austin’s story is not just about medicine. It’s about endurance. It’s about a teenager whose life has been interrupted and rewritten by a diagnosis he never asked for. It’s about a mother trying to stay strong while her heart breaks in slow motion. And it’s about the kind of faith families cling to when the road keeps getting longer.

If you have a moment today, please keep Austin and Vanessa in your prayers.

For strength. For relief. For a breakthrough. For a miracle.

Because Austin is still here. Still fighting. And this family is still standing—even when it hurts. 🎗️💛