When Steven Cotter was just six years old, he was diagnosed with high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Days later, he began chemotherapy treatments which he would continue to undergo every day for the next three years of his life.
“He’s had so many blood and platelet transfusions over the past three years, so many medications and hospital stays,” his mother, Ashley Cotter, told ABC News .
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But after years spent bravely battling the disease, 9-year-old Steven has finally taken his last dose of chemo medication in an emotional moment that was captured on video.
Ashley filmed Steven as he sat at their dining room table, surrounded by rows and rows of empty drug containers.
In the video, the young boy can be seen with his head in his hand, ready with a single cup of water in front of him that will help him swallow the final pill he has to take before he officially finishes chemo.
Overcome with emotion, Steven soon begins to cry.
Although there’s no sound to the video, his mother said it best when she captioned the clip, “You can just feel it.”
Indeed, the emotion of the moment is easily translated to viewers as you watch the tearful Steven realize this is the last time he’ll have to take the pills he’s been forced to ingest every single day for the last three years.
Eventually, Steven stands and his father approaches with a small cup of medicine — the boy’s final dose.
Steven takes a big gulp of water, opens his mouth and accepts the pills. After he’s swallowed them down, his young brother and a friend begin cheering and run around the room in celebration.
At the end of the video, Steven gets up onto his chair and throws his arms victoriously up in the air.
Ashley shared the emotional video on Facebook where she wrote, “PRAISE GOD!!! Little mans VERY LAST CHEMO!!! BIG TEARS OF JOY.”
Since being uploaded on December 14, the video has been viewed over 85,000 times.
Watch the full video below.
In a follow-up post, Ashley went into more details about the muted video and Steven’s reaction to being cancer-free.
“You have never seen pure happiness till you’ve seen a 9 year old little boy cry the most happiest tears ever to be cancer free and take his last chemo treatment,” she wrote . “My baby took his last chemo crying with a smile on his face!!!! God blessed my family! Both my sons have a story to tell!!”
Ashley has since shared photos of Steven sitting on the table surrounded by his empty pill bottles.
“This is just a touch of what he’s had to take over the past 3 yrs,” she wrote. “My baby kicked cancer[‘s] ass with a smile on his face and his head held high.”
In another post, the proud mom shared a picture of Steven and his brother with a cake to celebrate the momentous occasion.
“It was absolutely horrible to hear the words ‘your son has cancer,’ absolutely heart wrenching; but to finally be here at the end and to have witnessed my 9-year-old boy beat cancer and do his chemotherapy treatment with a smile on his face and his head held high was absolutely amazing,” she told ABC News .
She added, “We in all honesty have came so much closer as a family, came closer to God and always kept the faith.”
h/t: ABC News , Facebook | Ashley Cotter
