Advice for Dads of Kids with Cancer: One Dad’s Perspective

A Letter from Josh

Have you ever asked yourself what it really means to live life one day at a time?

Several years ago, a California Highway Patrol Officer was struck by a car and left paralyzed from the neck down. When asked how he was able to keep going, his answer was simple. “Fifteen minutes at a time.”

Through my own unwanted circumstances, I have learned to take his answer one step further. Life is lived one moment at a time.

What Cancer Forces You to Learn

During the days my son was in the hospital, I was forcefully trained in the truth of this.

That new reality arrived every time the doctors poked or prodded him. It arrived in every opportunity we chose to have as much fun as we possibly could. This reality lived in the seconds we stole away from the hospital. Ultimatley it existed in every moment we chose to celebrate life and our time together rather than grieve what we could not control.

I understand that some people force themselves into the present moment through extreme sports, through the adrenaline of a steep hill or a cliff edge where every second and every decision matters for survival.

Cancer does the exact same thing. Except you do not choose it. It chooses you.

The First Days After Diagnosis

I remember having to force Season to eat because she refused food for the first three days after Kicker’s diagnosis. My brother literally had to carry me home because I could not stop sobbing. I remember what it felt like to have the ground completely disappear beneath my feet.

And then I watched my wife find what I can only describe as Mommy Beast Mode. She forced herself to sleep so she could function. She became completely determined to spend every possible moment learning how to help our son fight. Her focus was almost frightening in its intensity and it was one of the most remarkable things I have ever witnessed.

For me, once the initial shock began to clear, there was no other choice available. Fighting was the only way forward. Especially once I understood what Season was learning about nutrition, detox, and integrative support.

And that is my first piece of advice for dads of kids with cancer. Get in the fight. Do not stand on the sidelines processing while your partner carries the weight alone. Your presence, your willingness to learn, and your decision to engage are not optional right now. They are everything.

What Being in the Moment Actually Requires

If you are in this battle for your child’s survival, now is the time to be fully present and fully committed. Not tomorrow. Not when things settle down. Now.

This is what that looked like for our family:

Praying with everything we had, every single day without exception.

Learning what organic actually means when it comes to the food going into our son’s body and why it mattered for his healing.

Thinking about detoxing the cancer out rather than only focusing on killing it with conventional treatment.

Being open to essential oils and integrative tools that our conventional team would never have suggested.

Seeking additional support from practitioners who understood nutrition and holistic oncology alongside our medical team.

Not leaving everything in the hands of a system that was not designed to address the underlying terrain that allowed cancer to develop in the first place.

I want to be direct with you. It took my son getting cancer for me to start truly listening to my wife’s approach to health. I had heard it for years. I had nodded along. But I had not really engaged. Cancer ended that. One more moment with my son was worth sacrificing anything and everything I could imagine.

No sugar? Easy. Traveling to multiple doctors? No problem. Going broke on holistic treatments? I could not have cared less. But watching my son suffer was worse than every sacrifice combined.

Win One Day at a Time

I know that changing everything at once sounds completely overwhelming. We lived in this battle for three and a half years. Some moments flew by. Others felt like they would never end. I understand the weight of what you are carrying.

But here is what I am asking you to do. Do not try to win the whole war today. Just win today.

Win one day. Then let that day give you the power to win the next one. And the one after that. The old saying haunted me during Kicker’s treatment: a year from now you will wish you had started today. Do not let that be true for your family.

Every day you choose to fight intentionally, whether that means changing one food, doing one research session, making one appointment with an integrative practitioner, or simply being fully present with your child for one uninterrupted hour, that day matters. It compounds. It adds up into something your child will carry with them.

What I Prayed Every Day

I prayed every day that God would give me Kicker’s Leukemia and I meant it completely. As his dad, I would have taken every bit of it without hesitation.

Your child deserves every possible chance to beat this disease. And as their parent, as their father, you do not just need to be motivated. You need to be obsessed with giving them the absolute best hope available. You need to be the kind of parent who looks back and knows without any doubt that you left nothing on the table.

That obsession is not fear. It is love in its most active and determined form.

So fight this war today. Right now. In this moment.

And know that I am praying for you. For your precious moments, for your energy, the health of your child. I am praying for the strength of your marriage through this season.

And please, no matter what today holds, hug your kids.

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From Season:

If Josh’s words resonated with you or if you have a partner who needs to hear this, please share this post with them. And if you are a dad who has walked this road and come out the other side, leave something in the comments below for the fathers who are just beginning. Your words could be exactly what someone needs today.

For support navigating your child’s cancer journey as a whole family, visit us at Biodynamic Wellness and tune into the Thrive Through and Beyond Cancer podcast where we talk about not just the clinical tools but the real human experience of fighting for your child’s life.

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