Our son, and the note that carried us

It started at a dental cleaning

Our son Dash said his mouth was hurting, so I took him in. It surfaced at what was supposed to be a routine dental cleaning. The dentist found a big mass and said she did not know what would need to be done. I would have to see an oral surgeon.

I knew it was serious when an oral surgeon who had no availability for a month suddenly, almost magically, found an appointment for us that same day. The appointment was in Texarkana, about an hour and a half from home.

The oral surgeon gave me three possibilities. She could drain it in her office, with no anesthesia needed. It might need surgery, and she could do it herself. Or there was the one with only a 1% chance: it could be so far over her head that Dash would have to be operated on by the man who taught her everything she knew about oral surgery, in Shreveport, Louisiana.

She said it could be an ameloblastoma, and told me not to look it up because it would scare me badly. She only said it so I would not be blindsided. A biopsy had to come first. When I heard the word biopsy, I told myself, “I'm not going to panic yet.”

Three appointments

1. 1

   Appointment 1 — First consult

   The oral surgeon laid out the possibilities and told me a biopsy had to come first. When I heard the word biopsy, I told myself, “I'm not going to panic yet.”

2. 2

   Appointment 2 — The biopsy

   The biopsy was done. Then we waited for the results.

3. 3

   Appointment 3 — The results

   We got the results, and that is the appointment I cried the whole way home from. The biopsy came back cystic ameloblastoma, and Dash was referred to Dr. Ghali in Shreveport, Louisiana.

The drive home

It was on the drive home from that results appointment that I cried the whole way. I was in the passenger seat, hiding my face from Dash and Gold, my children, so neither of them would see how terrified I was. I was trying to keep the whole thing upright while the car kept moving and my kids got to keep being kids. But God saw every second of it. I never had to hide from Him, and I could not have even if I tried. That was mercy, not a threat. In front of my children I had to be steady; in front of God I was allowed to fall completely apart. Not one minute of that drive was unseen.

The surgeon we were sent to

Dash was referred to Dr. Ghali in Shreveport, Louisiana. He happens to be one of the leading surgeons for this exact type of surgery. What a blessing, and an absolute miracle, that he is who we were referred to.

The note we started

Once I could finally melt down, my husband, Dash's dad, did something quietly brilliant. He started a note on his phone. Not a plan, not a speech, not a list of things to be less scared about. A digital note of Scriptures. And we began believing for him.

A prayer from the classroom wall

When Dash was in preschool, he would pray through the color chart. The chart was huge and hung on the classroom wall, right in front of his class. He would start with green, go down to yellow, then say, “Please Lord, please let no one make it all the way down to red. But if they do, let them make it back to yellow, and if they can find the strength, back to green.” Then he would stretch that part up to purple out.

Verses for everything we were fighting

We added verses to the phone note for everything we were fighting. When our thoughts ran ahead of us, there was a verse for that. When the days got long and boring and the waiting wore on him, there was a verse for that. When we needed peace more than we needed answers, there was a verse for that too. We prayed them out loud together.

And we were never the only ones praying. Dash's dad and his grandparents were all praying together, generations lifting up one boy. His grandmother and grandfather were praying in the gap for their grandson, and nobody in that circle was praying alone.

The rest of the story

Today, Dash is in remission. He still has regular scans to be sure a tumor isn't coming back. Those scans are part of our family's normal now, and we do not take a single one of them for granted. After his jaw surgery, we kept praying over him and trusting God through every scan.

Here is what I want you to understand about our son: Dash has always been bold about his faith. He was preaching when he was little. He just had the gift. I have said it before and I will keep saying it: sometimes God can even use a kid to confirm something, and more than once, watching him preach, I felt that was exactly what was happening.

And I believe, with everything in me, that the attack on his little body was partly an attempt to block that calling. If it was, then let the record show how wildly it failed. The calling that came out of this season is louder than the one that went in.

The Victory lap

The word on his jersey is not a coincidence. Victory is the name of his grandfather's church and school, and the boy we prayed for came back playing for Victory.

And here is the part that still makes me smile. After the illness was when Dash really discovered his love for basketball. What was meant to bury him became the thing he plays. He laces up, and he plays, and every game is a small, loud piece of evidence that the attack did not win.

Victory looks good on him.