It had already been one heck of a year for Paul Cauthen before this week, but things just got a whole lot more interesting.

The 40-year-old country music star announced earlier in 2025 that he is battling cancer, but he didn’t let that stop him as he hit out on the road touring and even putting together a new album. Turns out, that wasn’t all he was doing because he announced on social media that he and his wife, Elizabeth, are expecting a child.

“(Elizabeth Cauthen) and I are beyond excited to announce a baby boy is on the way,” he wrote on Instagram. “Spring 2026!!! We have been trying for over four years now. It’s God’s timing not ours. We are ready to bring Lil Velvet into this world.”

Fans and followers were quick to send congratulations Cauthen’s way.

The news comes just days after Cauthen mentioned his health in a post.

“I cancelled a bunch of shows this year due to being burnt out and sick,” he wrote. “I got my health right and remembered why I do this in the first place. I’m called to do this. The Lord has blessed me in countless ways. I turned my back, I selfishly chose my way instead of just listening to the calling.

“Thankful for all of you who made it out to all my shows,” he continued. “We wouldn’t do it without you. Boy do we have some songs coming for you!!!! Album is about mixed and ready for master. The band is hot. The team is tight. It just feels right. God bless you!”

While it was not a direct comment about the status of his thyroid cancer, it is encouraging for fans to see him say he got his health right.

Earlier this year, he opened up about exactly what he is doing to treat his thyroid cancer as well as how he thinks things are going during an appearance on the “Ten Year Town” podcast with Troy Cartwright.

“Going good,” Cauthen said. “Whipping cancer’s ass. It’s going great. I’ve been taking a bunch of supplements. Taking ivermectin, fenbendazole and methylene blue. All these things not a lot of people talk about instead of doing the general way of having your whole endocrine system ripped out of your throat.”

Cauthen then touched on some formerly in his circle being against him taking a holistic approach.

“I went a different way,” he said. “So, it has been … a lot of people shunned me for it. A lot of people have gotten a lot of flack. I’ve stopped working with people because of this situation. It’s been weird. You want to actually make a call for your own body, and people want to make calls for your body for you. That was the first time I ever had that feeling. I guess getting cancer is one of those things that kind of opened up who the real people are in your life that are in it for you and your health and your journey back to your most wanted health. Instead of playing psychological games and trying to tell you what to do and have you do this and do that, and you need to be like that, and we have the answers.

“Everybody can tell you what they believe, but you gotta go find it out for yourself.”

Cauthen said that he has always been “as a stubborn as a mule.”

“It’s wild. It’s scary,” he said. “I took a tougher road in the end. I’d already be healed up, but there’s a chance I could have lost my voice. There’s you know, I could have been unstable in my calcium and my levels could be, I could feel like I have a weighted blanket on me every day and be fatigued, chronic fatigue. Maybe me sex drive goes down. There’s so many things that can happen when you pull this organ out of your body. It takes you years to get stable on supplements, and you’re married to supplements the rest of your life. So, I’m taking a crapload of supplements now, and I’ve lost 25 pounds, and I believe that in the end I can say that cancer really saved my life because it stopped a lot of my bad habits.”

Brian Linder is the trending editor and the retail, restaurant and real estate editor at PennLive.com. He has more than 20 years of experience working for newspapers first in South Carolina, then Daytona Beach,…