Andrew's Road to Recovery

Stephan Papenfus is organizing this fundraiser.

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This past summer I received one of the scariest phone calls of my life. My older brother, Andrew, was being taken to the hospital after having a seizure while coaching a youth basketball camp at Santa Clara University. While at the hospital Andrew underwent MRIs and CT scans and they revealed that Andrew had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. The following day he had a brain biopsy to get a tissue sample from the tumor. Waiting for the pathology report was difficult because it was unknown whether the tumor was cancerous or not. When the pathology report finally came back the tumor was classified as benign, helping to alleviate some of the stress about whether or not the tumor had to be immediately removed.

Upon hearing the news from my mom, I flew out to California a couple days afterward to help care for Andrew because my parents had to return to work the following week. I had the responsibility of driving him to doctors appointments and anywhere else he needed to go. After consulting with the doctors they advised Andrew to have the tumor removed sooner as opposed to later to prevent future complications. After meeting with various brain surgeons we learned that the tumor is located near his motor cortex and the surgery runs the possibility of ending his basketball career.

This comes on the eve of Andrew’s senior year of college and his last year of playing D-1 basketball. Upon graduating high school Andrew did not have any scholarship opportunities so he chose to go to Santa Clara University where he would have many academic opportunities. Never giving up on the dream of playing basketball, Andrew managed to earn a jersey on Santa Clara’s basketball team after being a practice player and team manager. Andrew has become one of my role models after being able to handle such a hardship with such grace and positivity. “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny…” -C.S. Lewis

I put together this campaign to help my family with the unexpected medical bills and to show Andrew that his community is behind him. With all our support I know he will make a full recovery and finish his senior year on a strong note.

Please keep Andrew and our family in your thoughts and prayers as he undergoes surgery to remove the tumor on September 23rd.