STAR — Alex and Dallas Domy seemed to be the poster children for Idaho’s version of the American Dream.

Both born and raised in the Treasure Valley, the pair met when Alex worked at a North End Boise restaurant that Dallas and her family frequented.

They married in 2019 and welcomed their first child, Finley, two years later. Alex managed the Roosevelt bar in Meridian, while Dallas managed its next-door neighbor, the Frontier Club. Every birthday and Christmas, one thing was at the top of Finley’s wish list.

“A little brother. So we finally were like, you know what? Finley’s such a good kid. We’re going to give him what he wants,” Dallas said. “Thankfully, it was a little brother.”

Little Ren came along last winter. A few months back, the family of four vacated the North End for Alex’s hometown of Star, where Finley was due to add “kindergarten” to his long list of activities (football, baseball, jujitsu) in the fall.

But just after the nation’s milestone birthday, the Domys were hit with a curveball that changed everything.

Finley’s face had been drooping since he got a cavity filled in mid-June, something attributed to nerve damage during anesthesia. Then he started throwing up, so finally, Dallas decided to take him for an MRI.

The pediatrician told her that something was in her 5-year-old son’s brain.

“We didn’t know the severity of it at that point. My husband wasn’t even there yet, because we didn’t think anything was going to be very serious,” she said. “A specialist came in and told us. It happened so quickly that it’s hard for me to even pronounce, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.”

The condition is an aggressive and inoperable tumor in the brainstem. About 300 American children are diagnosed with DIPG every year; few survive to the second anniversary of their diagnosis.

“This tumor isn’t what you imagine, like you’ve got a brain and a tumor growing off of it,” Alex said. “The cancer is interwoven almost like a worm through the brainstem. You can’t cut it out, and you can’t irradiate it out completely.”

”That’s not our story”After the oncologist left, Alex and Dallas went for a walk and had what the former called “a really bad breakdown.”

The average life expectancy after a DIPG diagnosis is 11 months.

“The doctor, with tears in his eyes, said it’s just something that not a lot of people come back from,” Dallas said. “But you know, that doesn’t — that’s not our story. Our story is he’s the strongest boy we know.”

Finley is currently receiving radiation five times a week, which will continue through Aug. 20.

Beyond that, the family plans to pursue clinical trials, such as CAR-T cell immunotherapy in which a patient’s white blood cells are genetically engineered to attack cancer cells.

These trials could take the family to Seattle or San Francisco for weeks on end depending on what Finley qualifies for. With that in mind, the Domys do not yet know what kindergarten will look like.

When Finley had his first MRI, his parents told him that they were scanning him to see what his superhero powers were.

“Once everything kind of calmed down, we said, ‘you have a little something in your brain, and that’s what’s making you not feel so good. And going to radiation every day is going to slowly help you feel better,’” Dallas said. “Deep down, I know he knows it’s something more serious. But every night we ask, do you have any questions about what’s going on? He’s like, ‘no, let’s play Legos.’”

How the community can helpAfter the diagnosis, Dallas told the Frontier Club that she would not be coming back to work, but her boss and colleagues took it upon themselves to plan an Aug. 9 afternoon raffle to raise funds for Finley’s treatment.

Keystone Barbershop is organizing a 24-hour haircut marathon (9 a.m. Aug. 6 to 9 a.m. Aug. 7) and flash tattoo event (4-9 p.m. Aug. 6), while another coworker is planning a golf tournament for sometime later in the month.

Brigade Screen Printing has made “Finley Fierce” T-shirts, and the Domys’ official GoFundMe has raised nearly $75,000 as of Tuesday afternoon.

“They all came in strong in a way that’s unreal. It’s so awkward because it’s like, how do you say thank you for this? How do you show appreciation?” Alex said. “I don’t know how to show them how much this means to us, because this is going to take us at the very least through the end of the year.”

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is also stepping in. Now that he has a little brother, Finley has decided his biggest wish is to visit Disney World, having already been to Disneyland. That trip is tentatively scheduled for September.

“We just want him to have his normal. We want to go swimming again, play with his friends, get ready for kindergarten,” Dallas said. “We want to accomplish being a family. We play Chutes and Ladders, and I’m pretty sure he cheats because he won every time.”