Mother reveals in excruciating detail her final heartbreaking conversation with her dying four-year-old son who tells her ‘I’ll go to Heaven and play until you get there’

A mother has revealed the heartbreaking last conversation she had with her dying four-year-old son.

Ruth Scully, of Leonardtown, Maryland, lost her four-year-old son, Nolan, to Rhabdomyosarcoma in February 2017.

The cancer, which affects the soft skeletal tissue, is very aggressive and can spread rapidly, making it resistant to all forms of treatment.

Nolan had just 15 months to fight the disease, from November 2015 to February 2017, before it took his life.

In one of their last conversations together, she told her son he “didn’t have to fight anymore,” saying he would go to heaven and “play until you get there.”

Scully remembers saying to her son, “It hurts to breathe, doesn’t it?”, who replied, “weeeelll…yeah.”

“You’re in a lot of pain, aren’t you, honey?” she said, before adding, “paw, this cancer thing sucks. You don’t have to fight anymore.’

Her son replied, “I don’t. But I’ll do it for you, Mommy,” causing Scully to wonder, “Is that what you did?” Fighting for Mom??’

Despite the circumstances, Nolan bravely told his mother, “well DUH!” before Ruth asks him, ‘What’s mommy’s job?’, to which he replies with a big grin, ‘to keep me safe’.

Ruth said her heart shattered when she told him, “Honey. I can’t do that here anymore. The only way I can keep you safe is in heaven.”

Heartbreakingly, Nolan told her, “I’ll just go to heaven and play until you get there!” You’re coming, right?’, to which she replied: ‘Absolutely.’

In September 2015, Nolan developed a stuffy nose, which his parents thought was a cold.

But soon his breathing became difficult. Doctors tried antibiotics, a humidifier, steam and saline, but nothing helped. They decided to take biopsies of his adenoid tissue, which is behind the nasal cavity.

Finally, in November 2015, doctors diagnosed Nolan with alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer of the soft tissues – a tumor had compressed his airways and caused his ‘stuffy nose’.

Photos shared on social media show a bright and cheerful boy, posing for photos with hospital staff and family with a beaming smile.

The cancer grows in muscle, fat, bones or the lining of joints. Patients often experience drooping eyelids, headaches and nausea, and problems with urination and bowel movements.

Chemotherapy and radiation soon followed. Nolan lost his hair and gradually became weaker.

The disease is an aggressive and highly malignant form of cancer and Nolan’s disease began to spread throughout his body.

Once it spreads, the survival rate drops to between 20 and 40 percent.

Ruth wrote about how she had wanted to chronicle Nolan’s final days for a while and how her son was “made of nothing but pure love.”

On a Facebook page she and husband Jonathan created called Nolan Strong, Ruth describes her feelings as “pain like no other” in a moving tribute.

When Ruth took Nolan to the hospital for the last time, he had been battling cancer for more than a year, had not eaten or drunk anything for days and was constantly vomiting.

On February 1, the oncologist told the family that the four-year-old’s cancer had spread and that large tumors were compressing his bronchi and heart, just four weeks after the open chest surgery.

The cancer had become resistant to all treatment options and all doctors could do now was keep Nolan comfortable as he was rapidly deteriorating.

‘When I took Nolan to the hospital for the last time, I knew there was something more going on than just a lingering case of C-DIFF. I just knew it, and strangely enough, I think he knew it too. He had not eaten or drunk anything for days and was constantly vomiting,” she wrote.

‘On February 1, we sat around the table with his ENTIRE team. When his oncologist spoke, I saw the pure pain in her eyes.

‘She explained at the time that she did not feel his cancer was treatable as it had become resistant to all the treatment options we had tried and the plan would be to keep him comfortable as he was rapidly deteriorating.’

Ruth explained that her son slept for most of the next few days and she was concerned about signing the ‘do not resuscitate’ order from emergency services.

On February 4, 2017, Nolan passed away and the post detailing his battle was shared more than 928,000 times.

Ruth added that her son loved his family and friends with fierce devotion and that he was “a warrior who died with dignity and love.”

Next to the letter is a photo of Nolan lying on the bathroom floor, showing her son too scared to leave her side even when she was showering.

“Now I’m the one afraid to shower,” she wrote. ‘With nothing but an empty shower rug where a beautiful, perfect little boy once lay waiting for his mother.’