Lara McElderry keeps a binder full of photos. “I think the hardest thing for us was realizing after the operation he couldn’t walk,” said Lara.
They’re photos of the toughest time in her life. “I remember the surgeon saying, ‘What he can’t walk in the hallways yet?’ Lara said. “And I was like, ‘He can’t even stand up.'”
Her two-year-old son Ivan had a golf ball-sized tumor on his brain. His surgery to remove the cancer was a success but came with complications. “We just weren’t sure what his future was going to look like at that particular moment,” Lara said.
By age ten the doctors told the McElderry’s the tumor was officially gone. But those issues that came from the surgery were not. “Up until 7th or 8th grade I could see that fatigue,” Lara said.
“In 7th grade, I don’t think I did any sports,” said Ivan McElderry, her son and a senior runner at Kickapoo. Ivan was still having issues with balance and coordination.
“Then sophomore year rolls around,” Ivan said. “I did wrestling and wasn’t the best at that. And I was like, ‘Why not give running a shot?'”
Ivan joined the Kickapoo cross-country team, and finally found his footing. It was a new passion nearly fifteen years in the making. “I did a presentation on the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013,” Ivan said, with a laugh. “And I was like, ‘Mom, I think I can do this. It’s not too hard.’ Turned out to be very hard.”
Now two years since he picked up the sport Ivan is one of only 18 runners to qualify for the Boston Marathon as an 18-year-old. His parents will be there to cheer him on, forever grateful. “It would be nice if I could go back and tell my younger self what we would get to,” Lara said.
Ivan has one piece of advice for anyone who receives a diagnosis like his. “You can get through it,” Ivan said. “You can be ready for whatever hits you. You’re just like everyone else.”
Even when it seems like the darkest of times. “My husband said that he would be able to run with his peers one day,” Lara said. “I doubted that a little bit. So to see this come to fruition is truly a miracle to me.”
And Ivan will go from being unable to stand to standing at the starting line of the world’s most famous marathon.
