KTVN Channel 2 - Reno Tahoe News Weather, Video - Young Boy Survives Brain Tumor

MRI scans are routine now for the Lint family of San Antonio. They go into each test every few months with hope and faith. Doctors want to peer inside eight-year-old Connor Lint's head to see if his brain tumor is growing. In 2007, at the tender age of three, Connor was diagnosed with a brain tumor, an astrocytoma. It was about the size of an orange and inoperable. His prognosis was grim.

"They said it's bad. It's really bad," recalled Brandy Lint, Connor's mother. "They said maybe a year. Maybe."

His family prayed to God for guidance.

"As a mother, though, I can't tell you how many times I said, 'Give it to me. Give it to me, not him,'" Brandy said.

Connor was barely old enough for radiation. Specialists zapped the tumor that was overtaking his brain every day for six weeks. He was turned down for a clinical trial, so doctors opted for 10 months of oral chemotherapy.

"When you have a child with cancer, when you have a child that goes through this, it really, it can either make you or break you and it is a true test," Brandy said.

Connor has had six surgeries and still has a shunt to drain fluid from his brain. If you didn't notice his small scar, you'd never know what he and his older sister Mackenzie have been through. While he faces some learning difficulties and short-term memory problems, Connor is doing well. Incredibly, he's been cleared to play some sports, including soccer and basketball.

As a second grader, he's got a typical kid perspective on his medical care.

"The hardest part is I have to wait there and stay still for a long time to take my pictures," he said of the scanning appointments.

Those pictures tell the story. An orange-sized tumor has shrunk to the size of a pea. Connor has already lived four years longer than experts predicted.

"Everyone from the oncologists to the neurosurgeons, they will look you in the eye and say, 'You know this is a miracle.' And we go, 'Yeah, we do,'" Brandy said. "God has big plans for this little boy."