Scott Klosterman

THE STORY: Scott has been having intermittent left hip pain over the past 7-8 months that started after 2 rounds of golf and a 12 hour ride home from the beach over the summer.  It responded to rest, stretching, and anti-inflammatories but would recur for 2-3 days every 6 weeks or so.  He had an X-ray done around Thanksgiving that was normal.  In February, the pain persisted, and he saw a very experienced PT and a great sports med doc, who suspected a torn cartilage in the hip - which is what we thought, too.  He had an MR Arthrogram done on the morning of Friday, February 24, and within an hour, we knew that the images showed something much more concerning than a simple torn cartilage (though he does have a torn cartilage too - he’s pretty smart!).  A followup MRI pelvis the same afternoon confirmed that there was likely a malignancy in the left anterior part of his pelvis.  Over the next week, he had an open bone biopsy, blood work, bone marrow biopsy, CT chest/abdomen/pelvis, and a PET CT (all thanks to some PHENOMENAL doctors, nurses, techs, and administrators at SRHS), all of which confirmed the diagnosis of Stage 1e large B cell Non Hodgkins lymphoma with a primary bone site.  It is confined to the left front part of his pelvis, and truthfully - he feels entirely normal - not even taking Tylenol - for which we’re very thankful.  We will never know with certainty whether his pain came from the torn cartilage, the lymphoma, or a combination of both, but we are thankful it has been found so early.  Our oncologists have given him an 80+% rate of cure at 4 years and say we’ll be largely out of the woods for recurrence after 2 years.  The quote was, "The next 6 months are going to be a little rough, but I think after that we'll have this over and done with."

WHAT COMES NEXT? Scott will be admitted on Monday or Tuesday, March 20/21, to begin chemo.  We have had two excellent oncologists who have both seen Scott and reviewed all of his test results and feel that the right plan for the best long term cure is to begin a moderately intense chemo regimen up front rather than the standard R-CHOP.   There are less intense options that can be done outpatient, but with his young age and the unusual site, they feel it’s better to be a little more aggressive up front.  He will receive chemo for 5 24-hour periods (which will end up requiring him to be admitted for 6-7 days) in the hospital, then 16 days off for 6 cycles over 18 weeks.  We are, truthfully, dreading him having to be hospitalized so much over the next few months, but we can see in each step that this really is the right decision, and we are confident in the fantastic care he’ll get through our local hospital.

WHY DID THIS HAPPEN? A sweet Christian lady I know asked me if I (Kameron) thought it was because of all the pesticides and hormones in our food, or what other explanations could there be? We have certainly had ups and downs over the past few weeks, and I will not pretend that we haven’t both thought the same thing, - “Why us, God?!” Here’s the answer: Satan is a punk, the world is broken and burdened, and bad things happen.  There is no known genetic or environmental reason that this happened to Scott.  It happened for the same reason all bad things happen - the world is burdened by disease and hunger and death and all of the other terrible things we hate because Satan is real and has some temporary control over this world.  But as much as we’ve wondered why, I can promise you that God is standing over us, just as He stood over Job, telling Satan that He will only allow His children to suffer so much, and His heart is more broken over this cancer than ours are. Our knowledge that God is real, Jesus died for us, and He loves us more than we know how to love is what helps us take our next breath these days, and we desperately want you to know these truths too.  If you’re reading this paragraph, and you don’t know these truths - for yourself, as an adult, and in a way that’s real - we have prayed specifically for you and would be honored to share more of the story with you.  For real.  If you haven’t read it, google John Piper’s “Don’t Waste your Cancer.” We refuse to waste Scott’s and are absolutely confident that God will use it for the good of our family, whatever the outcome.

WHAT DO WE NEED? Many, many people have asked, and we’re so grateful, but right now we’re not really sure on the logistics.  We absolutely COVET your specific prayer, and letting us know when and how you prayed is guaranteed to help our spirits.  We do know that my parents will be up from Georgia doing the majority of the day to day child care on chemo weeks, so we would love to have meals provided every other day for them on chemo weeks.  A sign up link is below.  Our primary concern is Scott’s health, but outside of that, we want our boys to come through this well adjusted and doing great. We would like to keep our boys’ lives as normal as possible, so I (Kameron) will be doing some juggling schedules over the next few months.  If you’d like to bless our boys with a special snack or trip skating or to to the playground or a small gift certificate for a Frosty or Brusters , it would mean a lot to us to be able to spend our small snippets of time doing something special together, or for their grandparents to be able to take them out and send us photos of smiling, happy kids.

We plan to ask kindly for only our families to visit while Scott’s in the hospital because he’ll have a significantly increased risk for infection, but we’d love emails, funny stories, cards, or anything to keep his spirits up.  If that changes, we’ll throw the doors wide open and would LOVE to see anyone who can come by.

If you have a close friend or family member who would like to follow this and pray for us, please forward them the link, but we would also like to be able to maintain some privacy, so we appreciate you not posting it publicly or mass forwarding.

We appreciate you SO much,


Scott and Kameron