For both sons of Lora and Dave Krum of Lehighton, cancer meant chemotherapy.

Dylan was 14 when he was diagnosed in 2010 with pediatric follicular lymphoma. After his initial diagnosis, he was sedated to do a scope of his lungs. When he returned from the procedure, he was on a ventilator and in a medically-induced coma. But the road forward was clear: Start treatment to eradicate the cancer without delay."Dylan's chemo began while he was on a ventilator in the PICU," said Lora. "When we were first given the diagnosis and plan for treatment in May, the oncologists agreed that Dylan's treatments would most likely be over by Christmas."They were treating infections, continuing to try to fight the cancer, but his organs were taking a beating. There were so many roller coaster rides where we were close to losing him, and he'd bounce back to a degree."Dylan spent two weeks on the ventilator, and then improved to the point where he was breathing on his own and moved to the general pediatric oncology floor. Within two weeks, he was back on the ventilator and returned to the PICU. He would eventually need dialysis for his ailing kidneys."As time went on, while he was on the ventilator and on dialysis and getting all kinds of poisons, medication, pumped into his body, he ended up getting a pneumothorax, which is a collapsed lung," she said. "They inserted chest tubes and it got to the point where after inserting two, (when) it happened a third time, they weren't willing to put another chest tube in. In the mix of all this, the medications also affected his heart. It got to the point where we needed to sign a DNR (do not resuscitate) because there wasn't anything left that we could do. We had to basically sit and wait for him to die."Dylan passed away just 56 days after his diagnosis.Roughly two years later, in August of 2012, Gavin noticed a large lump on his neck. After a biopsy he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.Instead of treating Gavin at Lehigh Valley Hospital where Dylan had been treated and the memories were too many difficult for all of them, the Krums transferred Gavin to the Children's Hospital at Hershey.His treatment began as inpatient chemotherapy, with a goal of transitioning to outpatient chemotherapy. He also went through weekly lumbar punctures to examine his bone marrow."After the initial treatment, within two days there was a noticeable difference of the size of the tumor in his neck," Krum said."Within a week, you could see the expression on Gavin's face. He looked at himself and saw his normal image again instead of that huge lump on his neck."But treatments took a toll on Gavin's body as well. Steroids caused steroid-induced diabetes, which lead to insulin injections and even more blood monitoring."The oncologists prepared us for a long but manageable ongoing treatment plan that was expected to go on for a span of a few years, but in a way that he could be once again experiencing a more 'normal' life," said Krum."Neither of our boys' course of treatment followed an expected path of responses. Although Gavin's seemed to in the first three weeks, his battle quickly became as life-threatening as Dylan's."As for any child with cancer, the treatment can be very harsh. For the Krum boys, the chemotherapy was killing the cancer cells, but it was also damaging their organs and immune system.Gavin was able to return home, but by the next day, he was extremely ill.He was taken by ambulance to the ER, then resuscitated and life-flighted to Hershey."As we got into the helicopter, I was able to reach inside and hold his hand. I was able to feel one long hard squeeze as we took off and I just kept the tightest grip on his hand the whole way out," said Krum. "That was the last time I felt his hand actually grip, that he was responding."They began a similar roller coaster ride as their journey with Dylan, first seeing Gavin placed on a ventilator and then dialysis. His heart wasn't functioning properly, but doctors were still hopeful that his organs would regain function.But on Thanksgiving weekend, "things started to look a little more grave," she said.That Monday, Gavin developed a collapsed lung. He had a chest tube put in several days later."Again it was kind of the same scenario, and again we were told it was time," she said."It wasn't as long this time. In fact, he was closer to death than Dylan was when they told us. They allowed me to lay in bed with him while they removed the breathing tube. And they had music playing in the background, the music that Gavin would listen to. They made it as calm an experience as they could. They didn't stop care. They were using the bag valve until his heart stopped. They did that with Dylan too. I lay there with him, and then afterward as well. And there we were again."Gavin was 14 years old."Up to the very last second with both of them, you hope for a miracle," said Krum.