You can also follow along Amari's journey on our Facebook page titled "A" Warrior's Way. We have just opened the page to the public as of today.Hello – We are the warrior’s parents Whitney & Gary. Amari is our first and only child thus far and is a tiny fighting warrior!Amari was born as a “preemie” at 25 weeks old in February 2016. As you can imagine we went thru many ups and downs in the first few months of his life and he didn’t get to go home from the hospital until four months later. We were elated as new parents should be!Just as life seemed to start to settle down around his 10 month mark, Amari fell ill with flu-ish symptoms. This was two weeks before Christmas. We rushed him to the hospital – not one hospital but three of them! Two of which chalked his lethargy, non-appetite, sleeping 20 hours a day little body up to a flu or bug going around. The third hospital dug deeper and performed a CT-Scan whereas they found he had a brain tumor located in the cerebellum. The tumor also known as (Desmoplastic Nodular Medulloblastoma) was quite large and had started to cause his soft spot to bulge which meant his brain was swelling. Honestly life became quite a blur at this point, surgery commenced just a week before Christmas and the brain surgeons removed a 1 pound tumor from Amari’s small head. We could not believe our baby had just had to endure brain surgery.In a matter of weeks, we had went from a (finally) healthy and happy family to one of the most heart wrenching and unbelievable times in our lives. Our baby is now fighting for his life. In January, we began a regimen of chemo which would last a series of six treatments. Currently we have undergone 4 rounds. The first three rounds consisted of what they call “light” chemo or standard and the final three are considered “hard” chemo. Amari just completed round one of his “hard chemo”. He has two to go, which last roughly 4-5 weeks each. We spend most of our time at the hospital as during these treatments, he can’t go home unless his body and blood count at regulated limits.The tumor, the chemo, the hospital stays…they are bad enough, yet it gets worse. Due to the chemo Amari is suffering from reduced mental abilities – normal speech – walking, etc. His hearing has taken a brutal turn just this week. He has undergone several extensive tests and his left ear has diminished most of the ability to hear. He will be fitted with hearing aids temporarily so they can be adjusted if needed as the level of hearing changes. The continuous treatment will continue to affect his hearing, possibly his kidneys and his learning abilities. We hope that once we kick this cancers booty we can have Amari fitted with a cochlear implant. At this time we aren’t sure what we’ll be able to do.We have set up this gofundme page to help us cover anything outside of the “normal” expenses new parents and families face. We have experienced insurmountable costs associated with Amari’s treatment, loss of wages and overall necessities needed to assist our family and home during this time. We are very prideful family and this decision to create a fund to assist us was not made lightly. It has been very difficult to admit that we can’t do it by ourselves, that we as Amari’s parents can’t reach the level needed to ensure our child is comfortably taken care of during this type of medical crisis. This experience has blindsided us but it has nor will it get us down!Thank you for listening/reading our story of Amari’s journey. Amari’s battle is far from over yet his lionesome warrior attitude tells us he is going to be just fine!Any and all of you whom choose to help our family thru this charitable act will be forever engrained in our hearts. We will send back the prayers, the positive well wishes, the love, kindness and the karma you extend to us. We bless you from our family to yours. #faith #blessed #teamamari“A” Warrior’s Mom & Dad – Whitney and Gary