SPRINGDALE (KFSM) -- Before Remington Andersen starts a new chapter in his battle against cancer, his friends and family held a send-off event for him in Springdale on Sunday (Feb. 5).
His mother, Tina Andersen, said her son's battle started when he was 9 months old.
She said he had a stroke in church. After some tests at a local hospital, they learned his brain was bleeding.
Their next stop was the Arkansas Children's Hospital, where they found out Remington had a tumor in his brain.
His mother said he suffers from Anaplastic Astrocytoma high grade Glioma stage 4, which is usually found in men in their 40s.
She said her 3-year-old son should not be able to do some of the things he is doing with a tumor taking up most of the left part of his brain.
“He is completely asymptomatic," said Tina Andersen. "He’s running, he’s playing, he’s going, he’s full of life and he smiles like nobody else.”
After eight surgeries and multiple rounds of chemotherapy, Remington's family recently learned that his tumor has continued to grow.
Tina said they recently left St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and are now headed to Augusta, Georgia for a new trial drug.
“We know that we are running out of options,” Andersen said. "We’re just praying; we’re doing a lot of playing right now."
She said they are not sure how Remington is going to respond to the new drug.
Before that trip though, the family spent some time with friends at Fun City in Springdale.
“We just want to be there any way possible," said Samantha Erickson, a family friend. "Whether it’s finances, whether it’s prayers, whether it’s our presence just to be around him. Our goal is to make Remi feel like a kid.”
Erickson helped set up Sunday's event.
She said since Remington started his treatment, they have worked to help the family out in any way they could through fundraising events and a Go Fund Me page.
They recently started finished an event that raised about $2,000 to help the Andersens pay for the new treatment.
Tina Andersen said she had no words for how thankful she is for all the generosity everyone has shown her family during Remington's fight.
She said she would not allow anyone to tell her Remington's prognosis and would say one thing to the doctors.
“You don’t know Remington and you don’t know our God, so we’re going to go in this battling full armor every time and that’s exactly what we’ve done," Andersen said.
The family now hopes that the new trial drug in Georgia will give them the results they have been waiting on for almost three years.