Five-year-old Chad Carr, who has been battling with a rare, inoperable form of pediatric brain cancer for the last 13 months, has started hospice care after several aggressive treatments and no substantial progress has been made in his recovery in the past few months.

In a Facebook post Wednesday morning, Tammi Carr, Chad's mother, said it was a tough decision she and her husband Jason Carr made, but after watching their son's health continue to fail, they wanted to allow him to rest more peacefully than he had been during the last year since the non-stop medical treatments began.

"His breathing and swallowing have been getting worse not better, he can no longer walk and his speech is sporadic. We kept waiting to see improvement, kept waiting to see things turning around, but the reality is that they aren't," she wrote.

"We are taking him off of steroids because they make him ravenous and we don't want him to be starving and not have the capability to eat ... that is torture."

Tammi Carr said Chad started a different set of treatments in June -- more than the chemotherapy and the catheter treatments he received in the months immediately following his September 2014 diagnosis -- and they provided temporary relief.

"He was going downhill quickly in June and once we started the treatments, he really did get better. And we've had another almost six months to enjoy our family. But now we believe it's time to stop fighting and to let him relax and be at peace," Tammi Carr wrote.

"We are still praying for a miracle because we know the power of God and it is infinite. But we are also praying that if it is God's will to take him home, that he not suffer. This is so very hard, but it is also hard watching your baby with such extreme limitations."

Chad, the grandson of former University of Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr, has been the object of affection for so many around the Wolverines program and other local and national organizations.

People all over the country and globe have joined in support of the Carr family, buying bracelets of support and making donations to a #ChadTough fundraiser set up through the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital then through the nonprofit The Chad Tough Foundation, started by the Carrs earlier in 2015. The donations and nonprofit have combined to raise nearly $500,000 for pediatric cancer research.

Tammi Carr said going forward her mission is to push ahead with The Chad Tough Foundation to support continued research efforts for pediatric brain cancer.

"This has to be his legacy," Tammi Carr told The Ann Arbor News on Wednesday morning.

She continued on her Facebook post: "We have an amazing support system and we are so very grateful to all of you. Thank you for lifting us up and for being there through every moment of this journey. We are now entering the most difficult part but we know we can get through it. Please continue to pray."



Tammi Carr said many questions about Chad's condition have been answered already on posts she's made on a "Pray for Chad Carr" Facebook page here.

Jeremy Allen is a reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Follow him on twitter at @JeremyAllenA2. Contact him at 810-247-4625 or jallen42@mlive.com.