Maribel Wilson cried for the entirety of her son Tristan’s cancer diagnosis.
Tears streamed silently down her face from the moment the doctor told her sixth-grade boy that that bump below his right knee wasn’t shin splints. It was bone cancer.
His voice muffled in Maribel’s head as the tears nearly drowned out his treatment options - placing a steel rod in Tristan’s leg, or amputating it. By the time the doctor left the exam room, emphasizing how sorry he was, she wondered how she still had water left in her body.
Maribel left the exam room to compose herself. She put her back to the closed door, her attempted deep breaths instead coming out shallow and ragged as the doctors’ office walls closed in on her. She’d walked into the appointment thinking her son had tweaked his knee because he kept running in his Nike Air Maxes after the heel bubble popped. They’d leave with an osteosarcoma diagnosis.
Only when the tears slowed to a trickle did Maribel walk back into the room. She needed to be strong for her son, but the red rims around her eyes gave her away. That’s when Tristan set the tone for how the next four years of his life would turn out. He would be strong for his family.
“Mom, don’t cry,” Tristan said. “I’m going to beat this.”
Tristan just finished his sophomore year at Midland Greenwood High School. He serves as the team manager for both the football and basketball teams, and he recently earned a bronze medal in the seated shot put at the UIL State Track and Field Meet for the second consecutive year.
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