MIAMI – A 2-year-old boy is set to be released from a Miami hospital this week after battling cancer for over one year.
It’s been quite a difficult road for Noah Langlois, who was described as a fighter by his loved ones.
Noah was born at 25 weeks and on his first birthday, doctors discovered a hard lump on his belly.
According to his family, Noah was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer when doctors said the lump was identified as a tumor that occupied 90 percent of his liver.
After four rounds of chemotherapy at a hospital in Fort Myers, his tumor did not shrink.
“His tumor was not responding to traditional chemotherapy,” said Michelle Ramkumar Langlois, Noah’s mother.
Michelle Langlois told Local 10 News that a team of doctors at Holtz Children’s Hospital devised a groundbreaking experimental treatment for her son.
“This is typically a treatment we use on adults for liver cancer treatment, and it was never done on a child of his age, at his size,” said Prasoon Mohan, an interventional radiologist at the University of Miami.
Noah was able to get a liver transplant in December.
According to doctors, following his surgery, Noah had two more rounds of chemotherapy.
“This kid (was) intubated (and) kept going. He had faith in us more than we had faith in him,” said his mother.
After spending one year and three months in the hospital, Noah and his family are preparing for him to be discharged from the hospital.
Langlois told Local 10 News that she is more than grateful following the life-saving operation.
“My son is alive because of these people. I’ll never have the right words,” she said. “Thank you all. He’s a normal child for the first time in his life.”
Their family is being discharged soon, but they are staying in Miami for a few weeks so Noah can receive follow-up care.
Doctors say Noah will live a normal life for the first time ever.