Support Connor in His Fight Against Cancer

My name is Dylan and my life-long best friend recently found his 4-year-old son has cancer. He and his wife would have never imagined having to go through this, let alone setting up a fundraiser to do so. But with the inevitable amount of time off work and flurry of unplanned expenses on top of all the looming medical bills, I am setting this up for them in hopes of easing the financial burden of having to navigate something so awful and unfair. If you are reading this, chances are Curtis and Liz have shown up for you (or someone you know) in one way or another and now its time we show up for them.

Every donation, no matter the amount, helps and will be greatly appreciated. Even if you’re only able to share this GoFundMe page, your support would mean the world. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for standing by this beautiful family.

From the family:

On April 28th, Connor was practicing his hockey knee slides in the house— and hit the tile floor a little too hard, injuring his right knee. Two days later, due to ongoing pain and swelling in the knee- we took him in to urgent care for an x-ray of the knee area. Nothing was found to be seriously wrong, other than some fluid in the injured area.

About a week later, due to increasing pain and continued swelling, we went to our pediatrician, who referred us to a pediatric orthopedic. He took an x-ray of the knee, and saw nothing different, and more of the same swelling and fluid in the knee. He felt nothing was torn or damaged, and within 4-6 weeks of rest and ice, he would be as good as new.

Over those 4-6 weeks, Connor’s pain continued to get worse, not better. He would wake screaming in the middle of the night, and things like jumping into the lake would trigger immense pain.

Back to the orthopedic we went, demanding more answers. Another knee x-ray, another clean scan. But this time, the Dr. decided to try some exploratory movements up in his thigh and hip area. When he did this, Connor immediately alerted in pain, which nudged our doc to order an expanded x-ray of his whole leg. It was on this 4th expanded scan that a lesion was found in his right femur.

We then got an MRI done under sedation, to show the full extent of the lesion, which we learned was in the marrow. At that point in August we were informed it looked possibly like osteomylitis (bone infection), Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH, cancer-like condition), or very, very unlikely, Ewing Sarcoma. They needed to conduct a bone biopsy to learn more.

The bone biopsy was conducted in late August under full anesthesia, along with a full blood panel. It was excruciatingly painful and hard for Connor.

Blood results came back first on our way out of town to celebrate our anniversary— the results were promising. They literally said to us,” No signs of malignancy as of yet!”

Then, on Wednesday September 3rd, after dropping Connor off at his first day of Pre-K, I got the call that will forever live in my nightmares. The biopsy results were in, and despite what the blood panel showed, our 4-yr old baby was officially diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma— an aggressive bone cancer.

What happened next was fast and furious: a slew of medical professionals called, tests and procedures were ordered, and we were informed various medical decisions have to be made.

Today is Friday September 5th, and we are at Luries Children’s of Chicago undergoing ECHO, Echocardiogram, PET and CT to determine if the cancer is anywhere else in his body. As we learn results, we will work with our team to build out treatment plans that will include rounds of chemo, surgery and/radiation, follow-up by more chemo.