DES MOINES, Iowa – A school year filled with emotion is coming to an end.

On Friday night, Dowling Catholic High School seniors will walk across the commencement stage. Among them will be John Foth, the Maroons varsity soccer captain who put his senior season on hold to donate bone marrow to his sister, Ava.

Ava Foth, a sophomore at the school, continues to fight Pediatric cancer and remains at the Stead Family Children’s Hospital in Iowa City following her May 6 bone marrow transplant procedure.

Ava was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2022. The treatment worked at first, but then she developed Myelodysplastic Syndrome, a rare form of cancer that comes from cancer treatment.

“Every day that passes, I think, I hope, that we just get a day closer to her full recovery,” said Michelle Foth. “And, so, it’s hard to make plans or things like this, but you can certainly hope and pray for it. So that’s what we’re, that’s what we’re doing right now.”

Michelle spoke to WHO 13’s Katie Kaplan via Zoom from a gathering room in the Ronald McDonald House on Friday afternoon. She recounted a “life-threatening” health setback Ava experienced the week prior.

The issue had to do with a painful liver condition, which caused Ava’s blood vessels to become blocked and inflamed, Michelle said. Ava was moved back into the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, or PICU, and underwent dialysis-like treatment. After a few rough days, Ava had “turned a corner,” and Michelle said she was hopeful that Ava would be moved out of the PICU on Saturday and back into a room on the 11th floor where she could continue to recover.

Michelle planned to watch John’s commencement ceremony via live stream and was hoping her husband, Tony, would be able to drive back to the metro to make it in person. Either way, extended family, including grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins, would be there to cheer John on.

“They had their baccalaureate last night, and as much as we would have liked to be there for it, we just weren’t sure how Ava was doing, or how she would do,” said Michelle. “And so we had Emma, our older daughter, and then my nephew Gavin, who is 21 and doing an internship in West Des Moines this summer and is staying at our house, go. They were kind of the stand-in parents.”

Michelle said the entire family is grateful for all of the prayers from community members and to the Dowling Catholic Community, which has wrapped their arms around the family by supporting them in multiple ways, including at various soccer matches.

Meanwhile, John’s team, which sported pink jerseys in Ava’s honor at their final home game, will play in a substate match-up against Cedar Rapids Kennedy on Tuesday. Michelle said John, who participated in the first scrimmage since the surgery on Thursday night, is hoping to get in on the action.

If you would like to support the Foth family, they urge you to learn more about the 501 (c)3 non-profit organization called Unravel Pediatric Cancer, which is focused on pediatric cancer research and finding innovative ways to treat kids so that they do not have to endure toxic treatments like chemo and radiation.