Help Brandon knock cancer out of the park!

Hi Everyone!

We are starting a fundraiser to help with the costs of medical treatment for Brandon Ryan.

Brandon is a 19-year old college baseball athlete who just finished a successful freshman campaign prior to the season ending in March 2020. Brandon started playing summer ball in June 2020, around the same time he started to have the onset of some back pain. He endured this back pain throughout the summer while continuing to play baseball and was treated by a sports medicine doctor for possible disk bulging or herniation. The pain continued to worsen and by August 2020 it became chronic back pain that has prevented him from being able to sleep. Soon thereafter, he started to have nerve pain and complete numbness in his right leg/foot. This prompted a trip to have an MRI done (08/25/20), which showed that Brandon has a tumor extending out from his S1 and S2 vertebrae, and extending to the right side of his body. Three days later (08/28/20) he had a biopsy that revealed he has osteosarcoma of the spine.

Osteosarcoma is a type of bone cancer that is usually found in people under the age of 25 and commonly present in the arms and legs. However, osteosarcoma of the spine only makes up 3-5% of all osteosarcoma tumors, making Brandon's case exceptional. Furthermore, because of the location of the tumor, surgery is too risky to be considered an option of treatment in the early stages.

Brandon started a 10 week chemotherapy regimen on September 3rd 2020. He will then have two weeks of rest before going to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston TX to assess whether surgery or radiation will be viable options. Following either treatment route will be another 20 week chemotherapy regimen.

Brandon has been unbelievably strong through all of this and is ready to fight with everything he has to beat this cancer! Any and all donations will be directly used for the medical costs associated with helping him knock cancer out of the park!!!!

Any funds not used for medical costs will be donated to the V Foundation for Cancer Research (https://www.v.org/)