Sometimes life changes in a moment so small, you almost miss it. For AJ and Lindsey Wyman, a simple worry about their infant daughter, Emma, soon became every parent’s worst fear and the beginning of a journey that would test their family’s strength.
What started as a late-night trip to the emergency room quickly became a series of hospital visits and inconclusive tests. Eventually, doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia delivered the news no parent is prepared to hear: Emma had cancer.
“She was so young (7 months) that the cancer was either as young or younger,” Wyman explained. “Her oncologist had to kind of guess and said, ‘I’m going to treat it like a Ewing sarcoma.’ But she was diagnosed with an undifferentiated sarcoma because it was too young to determine what kind of cancer it was.”
Treatment began about a month later, but Emma had a frightening reaction to her first round of chemotherapy.
When she woke up three days later, everything had changed. "The doctors said, 'The life she was supposed to have is not going to happen now.' It was very unsettling."
The Wymans lived at the hospital for three and a half months, moving between the oncology unit and the rehabilitation wing. “She’d get chemo, then go to physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy. Then her counts would bottom out, and we’d go back into isolation,” Wyman added.
The family also stayed at the Ronald McDonald House, which he described as “incredible, like a mansion. They don’t charge you for the room, and they take care of you like family.”
Two rounds into treatment, they received the first glimmer of hope. “The oncologist came in and pressed on her stomach where the tumor was and said, ‘It’s considerably smaller.’ After the fourth round, they did an ultrasound. Shortly after, they went in and got the whole tumor out.”
By 11 months old, Emma was discharged from the hospital; by 14 months, she had finished chemo—all within just seven months. “Her last round was December 30, 2015, and she’s been in remission ever since.”
Now 11 years old, Emma is thriving. “You’d have no idea anything ever happened to her. She still has some limitations on her left side, but she plays soccer and basketball, and she’s an energetic team player.”
But as Emma healed, Wyman found himself facing a different kind of battle. “I bottled things up,” Wyman said. “I had lost my dad before Lindsey and I got married, one of my best friends two weeks after our wedding, and some coworkers as well. I didn’t process any of it. Then my newborn had cancer, and I dealt with it internally when I shouldn’t have.”
Eventually, that pain led to addiction. “It was the only thing that made me feel better,” he revealed. “I lost my job, went to rehab, and came back completely different and more aware of everything that happened.”
Therapy and writing became his outlet. “My therapist told me to start writing. I didn’t want to at first, but once I did, it felt great, like this huge weight was lifted off my chest.”
That writing eventually became his debut book, The Grace to Carry On, which chronicles Emma’s recovery and his own journey through trauma, addiction, and redemption.
“Most of the book is about Emma and her battle, but there are underlying mental health tones.”
When it comes to other parents supporting their children through illness, he shares the advice he wishes he once heard: “You need to set time aside for yourself too—it’s not selfish. If you don’t take care of yourself, you’re doing the whole family an injustice.”
Today, Wyman has been clean for five years, and Emma has been in remission for ten. “Everything we’ve been through was devastating,” he reflected. “But it made me a better person—more present, more aware, and more grateful.”
The Grace to Carry On is available for purchase on Amazon.
"Everything we’ve been through was devastating, but it made me a better person—more present, more aware, and more grateful.: