Celia and Geff Kinzel became engaged in 2015 and got married on January 7, 2017. Their ceremony happened at least a year before they’d planned to wed, and at a venue they’d never expected to consider.
The Kinzels got married in the chapel of a hospital, Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, because their two-year-old son, Logan, was there being treated for Stage IV brain cancer.
Logan and his parents received the diagnosis last year. He had Stage IV Medulloblastoma and had to under surgery almost immediately to remove the tumor and being chemotherapy treatments.
But even after months of grueling treatment, doctors reported after seeing his scans that the cancer had returned in November 2016, with great vengeance.
Tumors had returned in Logan’s brain, and now, also along his spinal cord.
Logan has had to stay in the hospital, full-time, ever since his second diagnosis. His parents have also changed their lives and are living at the hospital as well. Their older son, Rowan, 4, has moved to live with an aunt and uncle.
The treatment for Logan is now ongoing, and without any word of when he might be able to stop.
“[Logan] is a charmer, he will just look at you and you fall in love with him,” Celia said of her son. “He is still smiling and playing. He had his days where he wants to lay down and be cozy all day but, for the most part, he’s just a happy 2-year-old,” she explained.
Everyone in the family is thrilled that Logan was able to make the earlier, moved wedding – and also hopes that research for pediatric cancer will advance quickly enough for Logan to benefit from the new developments.
At the wedding, a photographer took a beautiful shot of the Kinzel parents, carrying Logan to another round of chemotherapy treatment. It’s a poignant moment and one that evokes a message everyone can relate to.
As Celia puts it, “[The photo] speaks to me of bravery, love and the ability to find joy and happiness in almost any situation.”
