Parents of Keaton Peck continue to fight for medical custody of their son

By Isabella Quintanilla

THORNTON, Texas (KWTX) - Back in December of 2022, 5-year-old Keaton Peck was diagnosed with leukemia after falling seriously ill during a trip to Minnesota.

Children’s Minnesota in Minneapolis gave him an emergency round of chemotherapy and afterwards no cancer was detected, but doctors recommended continuing treatment for another two to five years.

However, Keaton’s parents, McKena Peck and Hunter Verm, decided they didn’t want to keep putting their son through chemotherapy.

Children’s Minnesota reported them to child protective services, which resulted in the parents being stripped of medical custody.

Now, just over a year later, they could be taking their case to the Minnesota Supreme Court to continue their fight to regain the rights to their child’s medical decisions.

Lucas Dawson, their defense attorney, explained that now “mom and dad are allowed to express their opinion, but they’re really not allowed to disagree with them”.

Immediately after the Minnesota judge decided that Keaton’s treatment plan should be left up to the doctors, he started chemotherapy again against his parents’ wishes.

“After that first dose of the drug I didn’t have a good feeling about, he lost his ability to walk,” McKena shared, “physical therapy had to come in and have the doctors lower the dose because the oncologists we were going to trial with refused to lower it”.

Peck and Verm appealed the decision immediately, but just found out Monday that their appeal was denied.

So while they were able to transfer Keaton to a hospital closer to home, they still don’t have any say over his treatment.

“They now have custody of him again, but they’re subject to the conditions that have been set, and the court has set the condition that they have to comply with all medical requirements,” Dawson explained.

They now have 11 days to petition to the supreme court of Minnesota and raise the $3,500 it would cost to do so.

Even then the court could still deny their case, but McKena says she’s hopeful they will consider it.

“What makes my son’s case rare to the supreme court is every other kid with cancer that got sent to the supreme court in a case, they had cancer. My son hasn’t had cancer in over a year.”

She also shared that her and Keaton’s dad just want to be able to decide what’s best for their son, and for him to come out of this without any serious side effects.

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Parents of Keaton Peck continue to fight for medical custody of their son