Ruchir Tapdiya is 15. He’s worn the same Whataburger bandana for months; he researches his own cancer even on his hardest days, and he wants to be a doctor when he grows up. He turns 16 on November 3rd, and we’re raising money to get him to his next round of treatment.

Ruchir is my little brother. He plays soccer, he’s always with his friends, and he’ll try any new place or food. When someone asked him to describe himself in three words, he wrote: clever, athletic, adventurous.

Last fall, right as his freshman year started, he began struggling to breathe, felt exhausted all the time, and stopped eating. After repeated doctor visits, an X-ray found fluid in his lungs. He spent 21 days in the hospital before we learned he had alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a soft tissue cancer that affects about 1 in a million kids each year.

He went through 10 months of chemo and 6 weeks of radiation and reached remission. We thought we were finally getting our lives back. Then in August, right before his final treatment, the cancer returned. He missed his freshman year, and he hasn’t been able to go back for sophomore year.

Ruchir hasn’t stopped fighting for a second. He’s helping a researcher in Oregon work toward a treatment for kids like him, and one day he wants to be the doctor who treats them.

After talking with many doctors, we’ve found treatments that could help him in India, including Dendritic cell therapy, FAPI therapy, Natural killer cell therapy, and Ayurvedic care. He’ll be there for an estimated 3 to 6 months, close to our extended family. None of it is covered by insurance. With treatment, flights where he can lie flat, housing, medications, and a year of hospital bills, our costs are approaching $200,000. Plans may change as we get more medical advice, and we’ll post updates here as we go.

We’re a middle-class family. My dad Rajkumar is our only source of income and has missed months of work to be with Ruchir, and I’ve taken time away from my senior year at the University of Texas at Austin to be home.

Any donation, no matter the size, brings Ruchir one step closer to the care he needs. Funds will be managed by Ruchir's father, Rajkumar.

If you can’t donate, please share this page and keep Ruchir in your prayers. If you work in immunotherapy, integrative medicine, or specialized cancer therapies, or if your family has been affected by this cancer, please message us.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my brother. It means more to us than we can say.

Tapdiya Family, with love ❤️