At one point, Sonya Line said, she had to let her son go. Doctors told her the chances of the 17-year-old boy surviving the acute myeloid leukemia that wracked his body were like finding a grain of sand in the ocean.
When Zack Barker fell into a coma upon arriving at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis shortly after his diagnosis in 2001, the specialists attending him wanted permission to use an experimental drug on him so there would be research that might help somebody else.
When Line cried out to God that Zack was her son, she said, she heard God telling her Zack was his son.
“I had to release him,” she said. “God does not want us to want anything more than him on this Earth.”
Even in her anguish, Line said, she understood God could take much better care of her son than she could.
“I knew he had given him to me for 17 years,” she said. “I had to say, ‘I praise you and thank you for him.’ “
As bad as the situation looked — and he was in a coma the first 17 days he was at St. Jude — she didn’t lose her son.
“I don’t know why it wasn’t time for my son,” she said. “[His recovery] was an absolute miracle.”
While the experimental drug protocol Zack was given saved his life, it nearly killed him.
An original three-year drug regimen needed only seven months to work, Line said, but her son was in hospitals — St. Jude and T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital in Chattanooga — the majority of 10 months.
Zack’s 6-foot-2 frame shrunk to 90 pounds. There were stomach tubes, diapers and prescription drugs that his body continued to crave.
There was also the angst such an illness settles on an entire family.
“It was a long, hard road,” Line said.
Today, Zack, 27, is cancer free, has no side effects from the many drugs and owns his own business.
Line, 50, recently wrote a book, “The Power of Pain: Uncovering Strength in the Midnight Hour” (www.sonyaline.com), in which she details her son’s journey and explains how God “can bring light even out of gross darkness.”
“Through this journey,” she said, “God has been so, so precious to me. I know it’s not my son’s story. I felt his pain in my heart, but he felt it in his body.”
Line said since everyone experiences adversity or pain from time to time, her insights can help even those who haven’t walked in her shoes.
“Pain comes in many forms,” she said. “You don’t have to have had a sick child to [learn] from my book.”
Line said while she gave her heart to God shortly after her first child was born when she was 22, God’s “absolute faithfulness” was confirmed to her over and over again during her son’s illness.
“He’s there when we think he’s not,” she said. “He never leaves us or forsakes us. Even in the darkest hour, we’re in the palm of his hand. Whatever we need, he supplies it. He loves us and sees us through it.”