For so many, #BTAM isn’t just a month, it’s an every day occurrence. We’ll continue to share stories every Sunday as part of our #StacheStrongSunday series. If interested - reach out to have your story shared!!! Fifteen years ago Josh was diagnosed with Glioblastoma Multiforme. With treatment, physicians predicted 18-24 month survival. With a new baby girl due in mere weeks and three young little boys, we decided to participate in a clinical trial. Just as predicted the tumor stabilized initially and began growing again around 18 months post-diagnosis. After several months, the cancer stopped growing and has remained dormant since then. While the years have not been without incident, our daughter is now 15 and our boys have all graduated from high school. Josh has been an active and supportive parent. His survival is nothing short of a miracle. We hope that our experience can help others live for their own miracle. (fb)

Kyler Beane is a 28 year old husband and father to 3 children (6,4, 1). Kyler has been a lineman for 9 years. His wife stays home to take care of their young children. Kyler is very strong in his faith in God. He is a hard worker and a committed, loving father who enjoys time with his family and all things outdoors, hunting, fishing, and can build or fix just about anything. In June 2024 Kyler began have double vision. He initially went to the eye doctor, and was prescribed glasses. After not having any change in vision he was sent for an MRI. He was then diagnosed with a brain tumor and the biopsy determined that it was cancer, at the time considered “low grade.” Initially he was told his vision would not turn back to normal. From that point he had to be out of work to undergo radiation and chemotherapy every day for 6 weeks. These were a rough couple of weeks, but he finished his treatment, and before his treatment was even over is when we saw a miracle happen, his vision came back completely! The doctors had told us there was a good chance it would never get better. Throughout the months we began seeing shrinking of the tumor on his MRI’s. Once his health began getting better he was able to go back to work which is a goal he really wanted to reach. We were very hopeful that because he was feeling a lot better when we went to the doctor in January we were going to hear that there was even more shrinkage, however we were met with the opposite news. There was growth and new spots indicating more cancer. He was sent for another biopsy which confirmed more cancer and that we were now looking at “high grade” brain cancer. Because Kyler’s tumor is unusual and rare they have not been able to give us an exact type, but have compared it to and treated it as glioblastoma, which the most aggressive form of brain cancer. Unfortunately due to its location on the brain stem, removal is impossible. Radiation is impossible because he has had it only a couple months ago and could cause a lot of damage. The only treatment he has been offered is chemotherapy at this time. And we were not given much hope that this can even help at the speed of which his cancer is growing. We are seeking more help and hope at Duke’s brain tumor clinic. They were able to provide us a little more hope that due to Kyler physically doing so well despite having very scary looking scans. We are hoping they can provide us answers no one else has been able to give us, and more options for getting him better. Despite how incredibly hard this has been on our family emotionally, and how expensive the immense amount of medical bills, doctor’s visits, and hospital stays have gotten. We still have so much hope in our savior. It’s hard to describe and it hurts so badly when we get bad news, but we serve a King that does everything in His time, at just the right time. We know that despite how bad things look from the outside we are confident God loves Kyler and his healing is on the way! At his most recent MRI Kyler’s scans were STABLE. That is the first time in 5 months we’ve gotten good news! We have faith that more healing is coming. Trusting in God and his words are the only hope we have so we cling tightly to it! After the doctor suspected Glioblastoma and gave us that short life expectancy, I heard God say to me “that’s not my timeline.” These are the words we hold on to, and the fact that God created Kyler’s brain doctors can only study it. Please keep our family in your prayers, our biggest hope is that Kyler beats the odds and sees our beautiful babies grow up! And our prayers are with each family battling brain cancer, that you stay strong and fight with all you’ve got! (fb)