By Elizabeth Barish –
It made no sense. Little Cameron just had an ear infection. Why would the doctor send him to the hospital in an ambulance?
But Cameron’s mom insisted. God had told her that he had to go to the hospital. Paramedics couldn’t account for their trip. Never had an ear infection been cause for the ER.
Nevertheless, doctors ran tests. There had been NO signs, but the blood test showed mom was right.
“We’re so sorry,” doctors told her. “But 95% of your son’s blood cells are leukemia. He probably won’t make it through the night.”
Cameron Cortman was only one year old at the time.
“As you can imagine, it’s just a mix of utter disbelief, and shock, and starting to grieve, and really just confusion of what to do,” Cameron recalls of his parents.
So an inexplicable trip to the ER turned into agonizing days and night in which parents thought each day was his last. After he made it past the one week mark, it became a question of if he would make the next, then the next, and the next.
When he made it past the first month, the question was: Would he make to month 2?
And so his life continued, against the odds, unlike so many other kids, who, even believing in God, died of cancer.
“I just couldn’t imagine being my parents in that situation,” says Cameron on CBN. “You wake up in the morning, you think you’re moving to a new state and that everything is fine, and then to find out that night your son could pass away any moment. Nothing could test their faith quite like that.”
From 95% leukemia in his blood, the percentage went down and down and down. Severe chemotherapy treatment after treatment was administered. It was gutting.
At age 4, he was declared cancer free.
“They threw me this giant party, pretty much everyone we had ever met like our prayer community was there,” Cameron recalls. “I remember that day so vividly, even though I was
so young, like it was almost what heaven would feel like.”
Of course the chances of the cancer coming back were always possible, and that became an anxiety for him for life.
But as Cameron wondered why he had survived where so many others had passed, he began to feel like he needed to make sure his life counted, like he appreciated being given a second chance and that his life had meaning.
He played sports in college, got a master’s degree and works intensely for the Kingdom.
Cameron now works in marketing for Great American Family, a Christian media company.
“When you go through such intense chemo for so long, the chances of it having an effect on your brain, your body, is very high,” he says. “So to go from that to where I am today, a former college athlete who had the opportunity to play sports at the highest level, it’s just God.”
