COLUMBUS, OHIO — The parents of 11-year-old Katie Tanton say, “Katie needs prayers more than ever” right now as they’re finishing up her last radiation treatment. Her family said after that, she will be released from the hospital on hospice care.
Katie’s mother Breann Tanton told UWK that her daughter’s health is still declining. Katie was diagnosed in January with a rare, terminal form of brain cancer called Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma or DIPG. Her family has been in Ohio attempting a clinical trial for a drug they hoped would cure Katie, but have since stopped the trial and started re-irradiation. This was Katie’s decision, they said.
“She can’t do anything except move her left leg and left arm/hand some,” Breann said. “She has lost all other functions and any sort of independence she still had 4 weeks ago is gone.”
Katie’s parents miss the way their daughter was before her illness progressed, they said.
“We just miss her voice and her laughter. Praying this re-irradiation does bring back some neurological functions once the swelling in her brain goes down” Breann shared.
Just last week, Katie’s father, Austin Tanton shared on Facebook, “Katie is having a hard time breathing today, and watching her fight for every breath is the most painful thing I have ever endured as a father. No parent should ever have to sit by their child’s bed and feel this hopeless.”
After Katie finishes her final treatment today, she will leave the hospital on hospice, her mother said.
Oct. 2, 2026
COLUMBUS, OHIO — Austin Tanton on Friday requested a “wave of prayer” as his daughter Katie developed breathing difficulty Friday.
Katie, who is 11, was diagnosed in January with a rare, terminal form of brain cancer. Her family relocated from Livingston Parish to Ohio to put her in a clinical trial for a drug they hoped might improve her condition.
The drug did not work for her and her illness progressed. Doctors removed her from the clinical trial and started new radiation treatments a week ago.
On Friday Austin Tanton said in a Facebook post that his “heart is breaking into a million pieces right now.”
“Katie is having a hard time breathing today, and watching her fight for every breath is the most painful thing I have ever endured as a father. No parent should ever have to sit by their child’s bed and feel this hopeless,” he said.
UWK has chronicled her clinical trial experience since May. Early in her treatment for Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, or DIPG, she told her parents and doctors that she didn’t want to know the details of her prognosis.
“Her words were, ‘I don’t want to know if I’m going to die. I just want to live my life and have fun,’,” her mother Breanna told UWK.
After the clinical trial treatment failed, her parents said she chose to pursue more radiation treatments.
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