One family is facing a challenge so dreadful that it sounds unimaginable: All three members have been diagnosed with a different form of cancer. They are fighting not just for their health but also to keep the doors to their restaurant open.
Kathy was first diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma back in 2014. Over the years, she has been through various treatments. And in August 2019, the family received another blow when the patriarch of the family learned he had an inoperable brain tumor. Indeed, a devastating blow for the small-business owners.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, in October of the same year, 17-year-old Luke received some terrible news of his own—he had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “I found a lump on my neck, and I thought it was weird, and I told my mom,” the high school senior recalled, per News4JAX.
This hardworking family seems to be facing a never-ending nightmare. “It’s hard to process,” Kathy said.
“It was too much, especially when it came back down to Luke. It was just too much,” she added.
Three different cancers also mean different prognoses for each person in the family. “With Benoit, they’ve said roughly 12 years. With Luke, he has a very good prognosis if he responds to treatment and we'll know how well he responds next week when they do a PET [positron emission tomography] scan,” Kathy explained. “For me, it’s hard to say, because the variant I have is so rare they don’t have a lot of data on that.”
Understandably, this extremely rare situation is overwhelming. But in spite of the terrible hand they'd been dealt, the family hasn’t lost faith. “It’s hard—physically, emotionally—but the prayers help us continue on,” Benoit told CBS 47.
As all three family members’ health is in decline, they had to hire more staff to help out at the restaurant. Yet, these incredible people haven’t stopped working. “We’re known for our quiche, and we’re known for our soup,” Kathy said of her family-run business, per News4JAX. However, she explained they had to put the restaurant on the market while hoping to remain part of it after the sale.
In spite of dealing with such a hard challenge, all this family wants is for people’s prayers and to help them stay in business by visiting the Magnificent Cafe. After all, the restaurant was their dream come true. “We are set up for God to show up because it’s so over the top,” Kathy said.
