DOYLESTOWN, Ohio — Liam Whitworth is a magical, imaginative old soul in the body of a 6-year-old-boy.
He was the first child for Breanna and Kyle, and when they tried for another, they discovered Liam was a miracle.
"We found out that my husband and I both have infertility, so we didn't know," Breanna said. "And after more testing, we found out that we had probably about a 1% chance to get pregnant in the first place."
The Doylestown couple tried fertility treatments, but they failed. Eventually, they looked to embryo adoption, but learned the wait could be five years.
Then, plans to grow their family came to a devastating halt. What they thought were chronic ear infections in Liam turned out to be what many would consider to be a brain tumor.
Just days before his fifth birthday, Liam had brain surgery at Akron Children's Hospital for a tumor known as stage 3 parimengial embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, located in his right inner ear and nasopharyngeal area. Liam would name his enemy.
"Who is King Rhabdo?" I asked him.
"He is actually my tumor," he answered. "He actually lives right here where this little cotton ball is."
Just after surgery, chemotherapy would begin two weeks later. Liam taught himself how to process this new world of doctors, nurses, needles, medicine and noise. He became a soldier with special powers.
He showed me his chemotherapy pump.
"Do you see how I have this?" he asked, showing me his chemotherapy pump. "It allows me to get special potions that allow me to beat up King Rhabdo."
Like many kids fighting critical illness, Liam was granted a wish through the Make-A-Wish program. Disney trips, concerts, celebrity meet-ups are all common requests, but none of that interested Liam.
Breanna remembers the conversation clearly.
"She goes, 'What would be your first wish, Liam?'" she recalled. "And he was like, 'I just want a baby sister.' And she laughed. We all laughed.
"And she goes, 'I think that's between mommy and daddy.' And he goes, 'No, I want a baby sister.'"
Of course, Breanna and Kyle shared Liam's wish, and they knew embryo adoption was back on the table. But the wait worried them.
Liam, however, was unfazed by grown up problems. He found a sign in a dandelion.
"It was a strange dandelion — it was two that had grown together, almost like a conjoined twin," Breanna said. "And he was like, 'This is so cool,' and it was at the wish making stage. And he goes, 'Mommy, I wished for double babies, but don't tell anyone because it won't come true.'
"And two weeks later, we were able to adopt two embryos."
Liam chose which one would be implanted: a sister. He named her Zoey.
By summer of last year, Liam defeated King Rhabdo, although he continued on chemotherapy as a precaution. The family, cautiously optimistic, went forward with implanting the embryo.
On Oct. 2, Breanna learned she was pregnant, but that very same day would bring devastating news: King Rhabdo returned, too. Liam would have to go back to battle, but this time, he had a secret weapon: inspiration named Zoey, and a few weeks later, he could even see her.
"You saw her on the ultrasound?" I asked him. "Yeah," he told me. "I saw her butt and that cracked me up."
As Liam began aggressive treatments again, he started documenting his "reckoning with Rhabdo" in a book. It became part of his therapy.
"That's using his own language, his own creativity to help him understand what's going on," Dr. Anne Elliott, child palliative care specialist at Akron Children's Hospital, said. "That's exactly what we hope for in so many of these situations."
The family counted down the days in May until baby Zoey would arrive. Liam finished his monthly chemo treatment in time to welcome her, until an unexpected enemy put him back in the hospital: a fungal infection known as aspergillus fumigatus — not related to the tumor, but dangerous all the same.
"I was such a planner," Breanna stated. "I had to have everything in my life written down, set in stone, and he has just taught me that it's a day-by-day (thing). It is a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants (thing)."
Breanna had Zoey in one hospital, but minor complications brought her to Akron Children's, just a few floors away from Liam. He knew she was there, and when they finally met, the magical bond became unbreakable in an instant.
Liam's secret weapon gives him something to fight for, especially when his only wish — to be a big brother — just came true.
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