SLEEPY EYE — The Hauser saga began Jan. 23, when then 12-year-old Daniel Hauser was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease.

Doctors wanted to treat his cancer with chemotherapy, a treatment involving anti-cancer drugs with harsh side effects that his Sleepy Eye parents, Colleen and Anthony Hauser, worried would kill him.

He underwent his first dose of chemotherapy Feb. 5 and became sick, leading his family to stop bringing Daniel to cancer specialists and instead focus on natural remedies that emphasized a healthy diet. The family’s spiritual beliefs, called Nemenha, figured into their opposition to chemotherapy.

That led Dr. Bruce Bostrom, Daniel’s initial primary physician and a cancer specialist at Children’s Hospital, to contact Brown County in late April.

“It was a very difficult decision for me,” Bostrom said at the time.

Brown County filed a child-neglect petition seeking to force Daniel Hauser to accept chemotherapy.

The May hearings featured doctors testifying that Daniel would probably die without chemotherapy but would have a 90 percent survival rate with it. Practitioners of natural medicine called by the family touted its benefits.

Dr. Vilmarie Rodriguez of the Mayo Clinic framed the issue starkly, her voice emanating from the courtroom speakers as she testified by phone.

“His prognosis is dismal. This boy is going to die if he is not properly treated with chemotherapy,” she said.

A lawyer for the family invited testimony from Clyde Shealy, a 76-year-old former neurosurgeon who said he has “moderate” experience with cancer patients.

“You couldn’t pay me a trillion dollars to have chemotherapy,” he said. “... I say that four months of life is not worth six months of torture of chemotherapy.”

District Court Judge John Rodenberg ruled the family would have to choose a cancer specialist.

That seemed to place Daniel on the road to chemotherapy, and he and his mother fled the state a few days later just before an update hearing.

Mother and son reappeared in New Ulm about a week later and exhibited an apparent change of heart, though some inner conflict seemed to remain.

In the first hearing after their return, Colleen Hauser appeared to cry softly and take a tissue when the judge asked her directly if she’d be willing to follow a treatment plan that includes chemotherapy.

A few minutes later, he asked again: “Do you think this is necessary to save his life?”

Colleen responded, “Yes, I do.”

By late October, X-rays showed no visible tumor. In November, the judge dismissed the county’s petition against the Hausers. The family, however, never conceded the chemotherapy alone was responsible for Daniel’s recovery.

The Brown County Sheriff’s Office was inundated with media requests, Sheriff Rich Hoffmann said recently, calling it “quite a drain on our smaller department.”

The office held twice-a-day press conferences for dozens of reporters from around the country after the Hausers fled the state. His deputies worked with state and federal law enforcement officials in the search for Colleen and Daniel. Aside from briefly watching the Hauser farm after they returned, the sheriff’s office was finished with the case by June.

Colleen Hauser was not arrested and charges were not filed.

Looking back, Hoffmann said the case had a good outcome considering Daniel Hauser ended up healthy.