I’ll let Cooper tell this in his own words:

I completed chemotherapy a few weeks ago (ring ring) and the PET scan results came back this morning! Everything is looking good and my lymph nodes have returned to their normal size, mass free! I have a follow up scan in 3 months to ensure, but I’m on the fast track to being healthy again!

They don’t really use the term cancer-free with my type of cancer but we can still use that term in pencil, just maybe not sharpie until after a few more follow up scans.

I’ve also graduated from K-State with a dual major in both Marketing and Sales with a minor in Spanish. I will always be so thankful for the community and family I have in Manhattan, how it helped strengthen my faith, and the man it’s shaped me into.

I have accepted a job with Dell and will be moving to Austin, Texas… someday soon. I start work with them next week virtually as an Inside Sales Associate.

Big thanks to mom and dad and sibs for all the drives to Manhattan, weird food requests, and time spent in a mask to help me get better.

I love you guys big time, thanks for all the support and prayer in the last few months. It means so much and it has been so appreciated.

Allow me to fill in a few more details. His blood work looked great, his counts are improving, his energy is returning, and no lumps, masses, or inflammations. That’s a good day, kids. They will keep scanning – every 3 months, every 6 months – just to keep an eye on the situation. The doctor was very happy with the report.

More good news (for Cooper at least) – Austin, Texas (where his job is located) is still under work from home orders. So he probably will be working from home until September, maybe even later. That means more time for his immune system to rebound.

When we first got the cancer diagnosis… I jotted down a journal entry. I intended to keep it private, but over the last few months, God has prompted me to share it with friends who perhaps needed it as much I did. Here’s an excerpt of it…

Amy and I are obviously praying for healing for Cooper.  I mean, we’re his parents. Of course we want to see him healed.

But I am finding that my prayers are changing. It’s not the only thing we are praying for. For him or his sisters. Or even for us.  

I’m praying for a deepened, rooted faith in Jesus for Cooper. For us all, actually. A faith that is impervious to our environments and surroundings, a faith grounded in the reality of the person of Jesus who loves us and promises us rest IN Him.  I’m praying that our family will find our identity in Him, be conformed to His character, that we would anchor our hope in Jesus.

If Cooper is cured of this, and his faith doesn’t change… or deepen… If we all emerge from this nightmare as the same people, then cancer was wasted on us.

A wimpy, selfish faith that is not rooted in Christ has the same death sentence as cancer.  If my family walks through this and our faith hasn’t moved beyond ‘ATM’ or “911” prayers, what a waste of a trauma.

The blessing of God isn’t the healing or the cancer. The blessing isn’t physical health or security. The blessing isn’t job security or good behaving kids or a nice house or a great family.

The blessing of God is Himself.

That’s where I want our faith to be. So help us get there, Jesus.

I am thankful for the great diagnosis and the positive report. So grateful.  But I am still praying this other, deeper prayer, as well.  For Cooper.  For Amy.  For Camber.  For Cayden.

For me.  To know that the blessing of God is Himself.  That everything else is a pale substitute.  It exists to point us to the real blessing. And to miss that – to live this life without that blessing – would be the greatest tragedy of all.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  Apostle Paul, Philippians 3:8