Our living room erupted in laughter — real, from the belly laughter that makes your sides hurt. That may not be unusual to hear from a family’s living room, but considering our conversation was about my little brother’s battle with cancer, you probably wouldn’t expect any sort of laughter. That is just the kind of person Noah is. His battle with acute lymphatic leukemia (ALL) never stopped him from laughing or trying to make other people laugh. His joyful spirit is just one of the many things that disguise the countless battles he and his body have faced.
“I’m grateful that he’s been able to lead a fairly normal life — with the exception of the Lyme disease — that, of course, has caused problems. But he’s been healthy and happy, and nobody would know that he had cancer,” my dad, Tim Ellsworth, said. “Just being around him, you wouldn’t know that there was anything wrong with him, so we’re certainly thankful for that. I’m thankful that there haven’t been or doesn’t seem to be any lingering problems as a result of his cancer. It seems to be something completely in the past and hasn’t really had any effect on him as he’s grown up.”
Noah is a high school junior who has been playing baseball for years. He works and stays active in his daily life. He is also a dual enrollment student at Union. Although he fought ALL as a child and is currently being treated for Lyme disease, that has not stopped him from living a normal life throughout his teenage years. As his sister, I often forget that he has even dealt with so much in the past 17 years of his life. When I do remember it, though, it is such a humble reminder of the Lord’s faithfulness.
“It’s not something I think about all the time or that comes up in my day-to-day life,” Noah said. “It’s almost like it didn’t happen.”
That tends to be how people think about these experiences that happened so long ago. But just because we don’t always remember the situation or linger on the experience, it does not take away from all we learned about our Savior throughout it.
“I wish that he had never gone through it, but the Lord has certainly brought good out of it and has blessed our family through it,” Tim said. “I think He has made us mindful of what people in similar circumstances are going through so that we can be an encouragement to them.”
I only have one memory of being scared throughout his whole experience. It was the day that we were sent to St. Jude. I barely remember being at my grandparents’ house, waiting for my parents to come and tell us what was going on. The unknown scared us all, I know that for sure. But the Lord was so faithful and kind. He gave us so many blessings. Most of all, He gave us communities through which He blessed us.
“The Union community was certainly a blessing to us, and we had all kinds of people who were praying for Noah,” Tim said. “We had support from our family. We had support from our church. And we had support from Union. Strong support from all three. We’re grateful that we have the support that we have and that the Union community loved us.”
The support didn’t stop with the Union community, though.
“At one point, I thought, there’s somebody praying all through the night,” my mom, Sarah Ellsworth, said.
It just goes to show how much God moved people through our situation. There were people on the other side of the world who were praying for us and checking up on us, along with families who stepped up to encourage us, even if they didn’t know us.
“A few other families that found out about Noah’s ordeal, and so I had people, dads, who walked with me through it as Noah was going through cancer, and I’m forever grateful for them,” Tim said. “And so, I’ve wanted to do the same thing for other dads to play that same kind of role — to be an encouragement and to let other dads talk to someone who knows what it’s like and to be there for them walking through that struggle.”
God has worked so much through this experience. Because of Noah’s battle, we all have so much more empathy for people and families who are going through difficult situations. He has been so faithful and shown us so much about Himself, too.
“He was in control of that situation, and so there’s nothing I could have done,” Noah said. “Even though I’m not there, he still looks after me the same, and it doesn’t change. He looks over everybody the same.”
Life after cancer has been filled with so much thanksgiving. God was and always is in total control of our situation. Living that out when your brother is going through chemo treatment just makes you so much more appreciative of His sovereignty.
“It causes you to live with a greater dependence on the Lord. Our life is not our own. We are not in control,” Tim said. “The Lord is the one who directs our steps. The Lord is the one who’s sovereign. The Lord is the one who upholds us and keeps us, and we want to think that we have some measure of control over our lives, but we don’t.”
No, childhood cancer is not something anyone would ever choose for their brother to go through. But growing closer to God as a family is something that is priceless and that I know we are all thankful for. It makes us so much more grateful for having normalcy in our lives.
“It’s a blessing to have a normal day where you’re just doing stuff around the house or just doing normal things,” Sarah said.
This is something that is so easily taken for granted. When you’re in the hospital, normal days become rare and valuable. Even though it’s been seven years since Noah’s journey, it still hits me sometimes that he not only went through such a trying time, but my family also went through it with him. My parents led us so faithfully throughout the treatment that I would have never guessed that they were scared or had any emotion other than gratitude for God’s abundant blessings in our lives.
“Cancer was something that caught us completely by surprise, and there was nothing we could have done to have prevented it,” Tim said. “And so, it makes you, even in the aftermath of that, remember and recognize that we are very weak and very powerless, and it’s good then that we have a strong and powerful God that we can depend on.”