Shortly after his 14th birthday, Doug DeCola was diagnosed with cancer—a golf ball-sized tumor at the base of his brain. The DeCola family was instantly gripped with fear, uncertainty and dread. Questions immediately filled their minds. What would happen to Doug?

Doug's parents, 21-year staff members with Campus Crusade for Christ, were forced to put their faith into action in new ways. The faith of Doug and his three brothers (including his twin, Dustin), had never been tested strongly, and now they had to endure the most trying of circumstances.

The doctors gave Doug a good prognosis, but as Doug's mom, Debbi, emphasizes, "There are no percentages for your individual child. It's all or nothing for you."

"For a lot of people," says Doug's dad, Nick, "there's a sense that if you walk with the Lord, you're going to be OK. It's true we have a great hope and a future, but walking with Him is not going to protect us from trials."

The odyssey of living with Doug's illness forced the DeCola family to deal with things they never would have chosen, but they have allowed the Lord into the difficult process.

For Doug, the process first involved surgery. The tumor was removed successfully, but there was already a sense of loss for the family. Doug had double vision, and had to learn to walk and talk properly again.

Then radiation began. For six weeks, Doug went to the hospital every weekday to lie face down with a mask clamped over his head while radiation was beamed into his skull and sometimes along his spine. "From day one, he got sick," remembers Debbi. The nausea immediately affected Doug's eating, and he began to lose weight off his already thin 4-foot 10-inch frame.

Chemotherapy treatments followed, each lasting about six weeks. Doug went to the hospital for intravenous drugs, then home to recover, often feeling sick for weeks at a time. Just when he would start to feel better, another round of treatments began.

Amid the struggle, the DeCola family searched for signs of God at work.

"Doug has certainly asked the 'why' question," says Nick. "A lot. 'Why me? Why do I have to endure this? Why can't I do the things I could do before?' And we don't discourage him from asking, because it is a way he can pursue the Lord, and the Lord will work him through it."

	After chemotherapy treatments, Doug slowly continued gaining strength to do things like attending a football game to watch older brother, Rich.

Doug had always been very moral, with a strict sense of right and wrong. "But moral doesn't mean spiritual," says Nick, "and even when we would read the Bible and pray together, we didn't sense a real desire in Doug to know God. He was developing pride and stubbornness in his life."

But when he was diagnosed with cancer, Doug was forced to examine his beliefs.

"I didn't really believe God was real," he remembers from before the surgery, "I just thought I was going to die. Then when I came out of surgery, I thought, God saved me. And I realized that God really could save people because He saved me."

But feeling horrible day after day tested Doug's new faith in God. He continually fought discouragement. He grew tired of fighting the battle to eat when he felt nauseated. He hated to see his brothers do fun things he wasn't allowed to do.

Five months after the surgery, Doug weighed 20 pounds less than he had before he began treatment. "It seems like I am never going to be free from cancer," Doug wrote in his online journal.

Months later, Doug had an instant-message conversation with his dad on the computer. "I'm not doing so good today, Daddy," he wrote.

"Oh no, what's wrong, Son?" Nick typed from his office.

"I'm sick of going through this. Sometimes I wonder if it's better to give up," Doug continued.

"I understand that thought and feeling," Nick wrote, with an emotional steadiness he attributes to the Lord. "What do you think is better?"

"It seems like it would be much easier to give up," Doug replied. "And to die."

Nick continued to help Doug express himself and realize that giving up wasn't the best option. "I had to let God meet Doug in the difficulties," says Nick, "and not try to solve it for him."

Doug's brothers also had to struggle through the process. Whenever 10-year-old Robby gets a headache, he instantly fears it's cancer, and sometimes can't sleep at night worrying the same thing will happen to him. Dustin became distant from his twin, often choosing not to visit Doug during overnight stays at the hospital. "Dustin never really embraced the struggle with Doug," says Nick. "Maybe it was just too big for him." The oldest of the brothers, 17-year-old Rich, has seen his faith grow much stronger as he has walked the journey with Doug. "It's like when a piece of silver is refined, when it's heated until it is formed into something beautiful," Rich says. "We're being refined."

The cancer's effects weigh heavily on Doug, as he is forced to say goodbye to his young friend, David, who lost his life to cancer after the two of them met in the hospital.

A few bright spots helped the family through the struggle. The Make-A-Wish Foundation gave the family a puppy, and Doug's favorite rock band, Switchfoot, invited them to a concert, spending time with them and even dedicating some songs to Doug.

In the hospital, Doug met a 4-year-old named David, also a cancer patient. They became fast friends; Doug brought David presents in the hospital, and David came over to Doug's house to hang out.

At 15 years old, Doug's heart had softened enough to allow him to care deeply and almost immediately for a person who was basically a stranger. "You make him feel so special," David's mom wrote on Doug's Web site. "He acts so brave just for you."

But as quickly as the friendship began, it ended. In the middle of a sunny Labor Day weekend, the DeColas attended David's funeral.

Through tears, Doug stood up with his mom to talk about his friend. In a quiet, shaky voice, he told the story of how they met.

"We were in the cancer ward with the other kids," said Doug, "and I felt sick and threw up. I was so embarrassed, because everyone was looking at me, but David came up and put his hand on my back and said, 'Are you OK?' And I just thought that was so great, that a 4-year-old would come up and ask me that."

With David's death, the DeCola family had to learn to cope with a new kind of pain and sadness. "It's very appropriate to grieve," says Nick, "and we've allowed ourselves to be sad and not just automatically answer the question theologically. As we work through this, God wants us to be in relationship with Him, and part of that is coming to Him in our sadness and confusion and chaos."

As the chaos continues and Doug's family continues to grieve, they are able to rejoice at some of the changes in Doug. After nine cycles of chemo treatments lasting 12 months, Doug's hair, for example, is starting to grow back.

Other changes are much more profound.

"He has such a depth to him," says Debbi. "With his suffering has come a gift of understanding the things of God."

To read Doug's online journal, visit www2.caringbridge.org/fl/doug.

You can contact the writer at Becky.Hill@ccci.org.

ACTION POINT - The Next Step > Doug's father said, "I had to let God meet Doug in the difficulties and not try to solve it for him." What does this mean? How can you apply this with a friend?