Navigating The Unknown: Family Reflects on Cancer Journey One Year Later
It was a picture-perfect fall day. One that you snapshot in your mind to pull up years later while reminiscing treasured times when the pitter-patter of toddler feet and the carefree laughter of kids filled your home.
For Leόn “King” Reyes, that snapshot includes a view of rural family land under an Oklahoma sky where one child gleefully glides through the air on a swing while another sways with her mother in a hammock. Halloween decorations for the upcoming holiday dot the landscape. Hours away from the hustle and bustle of city life, it’s just Leόn, his wife, their three kids and peace. All is right in their world.
Then, in an instant, everything changed.
“I remember walking by and looking at everyone that afternoon playing outside and spending quality time together in nature,” Leόn said. “The sun is still up and I thought, ‘man, this is awesome.’ That was the image. Then it just went so fast from there to ‘your baby has cancer,’ and I think the world just paused. It just froze in time.”
During the night that closed that perfect fall day, Leόn and his wife, Lauren, noticed their 17-month-old daughter, Elliana, acting as if she didn’t feel well. A few hours later, Elliana passed out. They rushed her to the nearest emergency room 30 minutes away. Tests revealed Elliana was very sick and needed an advanced level of pediatric care as quickly as possible. Within hours, the youngest Reyes and her mother were whisked onto a Cook Children’s Teddy Bear Transport helicopter. Before the sun rose on the next day, Elliana arrived at Cook Children’s Emergency Department, where physicians initiated a battery of tests. 
“When the ER nurse was able to hit a vein and draw blood the very first stick, I just burst into tears,” Lauren said, describing how Elliana had endured many painful and unsuccessful sticks prior to her arrival at Cook Children’s. “In that moment, I felt like we were in the right place and in good hands now.”
A diagnosis came quickly — acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rapidly progressing cancer of the bone marrow where blood cells are made. In AML, the bone marrow produces too many abnormal immature white blood cells. These cells grow quickly and crowd out healthy blood cells, leading to anemia, increased risk of infection and bleeding problems.
“I had a hard time being in the room at that moment,” Leόn said. “I just froze. I was thinking, ‘Okay, God. You’re up. You’re going to have to guide us through this season of the unknown.’ That’s what we called it, the unknown season.”
Elliana’s aggressive inpatient chemotherapy treatment began almost immediately after being admitted to Cook Children’s Hematology/Oncology floor, which would become her home for the next six months.
All for One
Just a few months before Elliana’s diagnosis, the Reyes’ relocated from their urban North Texas home to their rural Oklahoma property, where they planned to take a year-long hiatus from city life. They wanted to homeschool their children, and slow their pace to one more suitable for savoring family time. While cancer changed their plans and their location, it didn’t change their hearts.
The family determined that they would be as purposeful in their time together helping Elliana beat cancer as they had planned to be at their Oklahoma getaway. They would walk this road together and all for one. 
By day, Leόn, Lauren, their 15-year-old son, Micah, and 9-year-old daughter, Bella, joined Elliana at the hospital, where the two oldest continued their homeschool studies.
“It wouldn’t have been safe for them to go to school,” Lauren said. “With Elliana’s condition and the danger of exposing her to germs, they would have had to choose between school and being with Elliana. So we just continued our plan of homeschooling for the year, which ended up being a gift for our family.”
Once Elliana was asleep for the night, Leόn, Micah and Bella would retire to their room at the Ronald McDonald House just down the street from the hospital while Lauren remained at Elliana’s bedside. Micah and Bella became well-known fixtures on the Hematology/Oncology floor and throughout the hospital. Whenever Bella played in the halls of the unit, young patients came out to join her. Little did the Reyes family know, Bella’s magnetic energy was actually helping patients in their recovery. A doctor told them as much the day Elliana was discharged.
“A doctor came to us in tears and said they were going to miss Bella,” Leόn said. “The reason being, the doctor said, is they try to get these kids to get out of the room to walk around. They have to move their body and can't just sit in the bed, but they can’t always get them to agree to do it. Chemo is tough on the body. But Bella used to have this little play stretcher and she would put her doctor gear on and walk the hallways. The doctor said as soon as the kids heard her voice, they all suddenly felt well enough to come out to the hallway and play.”
Micah, a budding musician and athlete, could often be heard playing the piano in the atrium, and found a grassy corner of the campus to practice his football drills. He even endeared himself to Cook Children’s Medical Center president, Stan Davis.
“Micah loves baseball and football,” Davis said. “I saw him on many occasions during their stay and he would always greet me as Mr. Stan and give me an update on his training and how his family was doing. The last time I saw him, he ran up to me with the most excitement I had ever seen from him and said, ‘Mr. Stan, my sister is ringing the bell this week. She is going home.’ I hugged him and it brought tears to my eyes. They trusted Cook Children’s and our team fulfilled our Promise!”
Supportive Therapies Help Heal
Elliana’s parents say hearing the word “cancer” was a gut punch. Leόn had already walked this road with two brothers who had cancer, one who survived and another who passed away. For Lauren, who follows a natural and holistic approach to health and well-being, the thought of injecting chemotherapy into her baby’s body was difficult to reconcile.
“I’m very holistic by nature, so it’s really hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that I’m about to give my baby these extremely high-powered drugs that also require a series of other drugs on top of that because her immune system is so compromised,” Lauren said. “I had to go from zero to 1,000 with all of the medications that I had to sign off on for my baby. It was just overwhelming.” 
Elliana’s care team met the family, their fears and their many questions with compassion and understanding. They not only took the time to listen to the family’s concerns and explain the necessity of each treatment, but also encouraged the use of a host of complimentary mind and body therapies provided at Cook Children’s, such as acupuncture, music therapy, aromatherapy, visits from the medical center’s therapy dogs, as well as integrative vitamin and nutritional support.
“They offered a lot of holistic things that align with who we are as a family that we were able to do in conjunction with everything else,” Lauren said.
The family particularly enjoyed the Laughter League, a troop of playful clowns who travel the hospital with the sole purpose of inciting smiles. After all, laughter is the best medicine, and play is a child’s universal language.
Leόn, Lauren, Micah and Bella worked together to keep Elliana’s spirits up, too. When Elliana had trouble keeping food down during chemo treatments, Micah would make her laugh to take her mind off of her nausea. Bella pulled her around the medical center in the wagons reserved for patients undergoing treatment. Leόn, a musician, would often pull out his guitar and sing to her.
“Every time she saw the guitar come out, she would immediately calm down,” Lauren said.
When the family needed uplifting, there was help for them, too.
One evening, two members of Cook Children’s security team ran into Leόn and Micah playing guitars and singing worship songs atop a medical center parking garage. Following that encounter, the security team went out of their way to find Leόn a safe and solemn space where he could play his guitar and sing.
Music was medicine for Leόn’s aching heart throughout Elliana’s treatment. He even wrote several songs about the family’s experience while Elliana was in the hospital. Leόn recorded one of them, called “The Unknown,” in Cook Children’s Sparklefly Recording Studio with the help of Raymond Turner, Sparklefly Recording Studio producer, and Sonny Burgess, Texas Country Music Hall of Famer and Cook Children’s director of Clinical Arts. When new patients arrived on the unit, Lauren says Leόn played the song for every parent who looked lost in a new diagnosis, and it uplifted many people along the way. “The Unknown” music video can be seen here.
“Cook Children’s treated our family like their family,” Leόn said. 
When Leόn and Lauren needed to focus their full attention on Elliana’s care, Cook Children’s volunteers stepped in to help support Micah and Bella.
“It was amazing how the volunteers loved on our kids, and our kids had a blast with them,” Leόn said. “They'd come up to the Oncology floor and were kind of like grandmas taking care of our daughter.”
One even played the patient while Bella pretended to take her vitals, draw fluids and insert a central line that Bella had drawn on paper and cut out—all things she learned from watching nurses take care of her little sister.
Even with all of the support, the journey was not easy. There were so many ups and downs that Leόn and Lauren say it felt like a rollercoaster ride where they could do nothing but hold on tight, while trusting the doctors and care team to keep Elliana’s treatment and healing on track.
Seasons Come and Seasons Go
On May 5, 2025, following her last round of chemotherapy, Elliana rang the bell on the Hematology/Oncology unit signaling the completion of her treatment. Her cancer is in remission. Elliana’s prognosis is excellent. According to Lauren, she has a greater than 90% chance that her cancer will not return. 
During a recent follow-up visit with Elliana’s specialists, the family watched as the giant pumpkin in the medical center’s circular courtyard was inflated—a small preview of the holiday magic Cook Children’s brings to life each year.
“Last year we celebrated every holiday in the hospital and watched the decorations for every season go up in the circle. The giant turkey, Christmas lights, Valentine’s Day decorations, Easter eggs, and it all started with the big pumpkin when we first arrived at the hospital,” Lauren said. “Now, the big pumpkin is back a year later, and it’s like we have come full circle. Even though things are not quite back to normal this year, we’re grateful to be able to spend every holiday outside of the hospital. But we still look back and remember how magical Cook Children’s made those holidays and can say we had a very good year of celebrations while there. It was so beautiful.”
The family has yet to return to Oklahoma, except for a brief visit. It was surreal, Lauren says.
Their lives had changed forever, yet with last year’s Halloween decorations still hanging in the trees, their land appeared untouched by time or by the trial the family had endured.
“It felt like a year was just gone, but also a reminder of all we lived through,” Lauren said. “It was a hard season but we look back on it now and are so grateful for how it knit our hearts together.” 
Now on the other side of that sharp and unexpected detour their lives took one year ago, Leόn and Lauren say they clearly see the beauty that rose from the ashes of cancer. Not only did it strengthen their faith, but they accomplished what they originally set out to do during their break from city life—draw closer together as a family.
“Going through something as profound as cancer reminds you of what's really important,” Lauren said. “Prior to this we had a thriving business and a great life, but none of that matters when you're talking about one member of our family possibly not making it. It just shifted our every focus, and it fundamentally and foundationally challenged us as a family to get back to what is rudimentally important.”
