Victor Caplan's story
This is not what our boy looked like for most of his life.
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This is Victor at age 3. He could already speak French and English and could steer a trike, three point turns and all, through a crowded house without ever touching the wall. He would ask, "pour quoi?", or "why?", no matter what you were talking about. -
Here's our beloved son with his big sister Célestine, after some fun sledding down the hill at our cabin in the North Cascades. Victor would bike for ten miles at a time if you let him, and loved to help his mom build a wood fire.
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Here's one of the last pictures we took of him before his terrible ordeal, enjoying a steamer at age 6.
In June, 2013, we found out that Victor was going to die from a horrible form of brain-stem cancer called DIPG. There is no known cause and no effective treatment except radiation, which is only a temporary reprieve for some patients, but which did not seem to help Victor. For the next eleven months we watched our son lose the ability to walk, talk, swallow, move, and eventually, breathe, and were powerless to help him, except to love him and take care of him the best we could.
Try to imagine being a 6 year old boy and waking up every morning to realize that you're still unable to move and not getting better.
Try to imagine watching your 6 year old boy endure this horror.
Despite everything, Victor went to elementary school for most of the first grade, answering questions by moving his eyes up and down for "yes" or side to side for "no".
Victor turned 7 in March, 2014; he died 2 months later. We miss him so much.