“He woke from a coma just to tell me, ‘I love you, Mommy’”.
Nolan was only 4 years old when a rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer of the soft tissues, stopped responding to treatment. His last CT scan showed that the tumors had grown rapidly and were compressing his bronchi and heart, just four weeks after open-heart surgery.
When his mother, Ruth Scully, explained that he no longer had to keep fighting, he said something that shattered her: “No more? But I’m doing it for you, Mommy!”. She told him that the only way to keep him safe was for him to go to heaven, and Nolan wanted to know if she would ever go with him. Ruth promised him.
During his final 36 hours, they played, watched YouTube, and Nolan even decided what he wanted his funeral to be like. When Ruth stepped out for a few minutes to shower, his condition worsened. When she returned, she was able to hold his face and, according to her account, the little boy opened his eyes one last time, smiled, and told her he loved her.
After his death, Ruth shared the story to call for more research and better treatments for childhood cancer. Her post was shared hundreds of thousands of times.
Nolan died at 4 years old, but his mother turned that final promise between them into a way to keep fighting for other children.