It Started With a Broken Hip
Anthony’s osteosarcoma journey began in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he moved his bed and felt pain in his right hip. “I put it aside at first, because I was going on bike rides, runs, and roller blading. I didn’t know if the pain was from moving the bed or from working out,” he says.
Within a couple of months, the constant, throbbing pain was causing him to limp. An MRI revealed a broken hip, along with something else that didn’t look right.
Doctors referred him to Moffitt Cancer Center. For Andrea, the name alone was enough to break her.
“As soon as they said ‘Moffitt,’ our hearts just dropped,” she says. “Cancer is all you think about when you hear ‘Moffitt.’ I started crying immediately. I couldn’t hold it together.”
Anthony remembers that moment differently. His fear wasn’t for himself; it was for his mother. “I felt like I didn’t have to worry, because my mom and my doctors had it all covered. I was relieved to have good people around me,” he says.
At Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital near Anthony’s home in Bradenton, FL, a biopsy uncovered osteosarcoma in his femur, and further testing found it had already spread to both of his lungs.
After the biopsy, Anthony’s care came together fast. Sitting down in a conference room with the care team, Andrea asked Anthony’s doctor the question no parent wants to ask: Was the cancer going to kill her son? “He said, ‘Yes.’ I asked how long, and he told me five years. That was all the time I was going to have with my son,” she says.
Months of Chemotherapy, Multiple Surgeries
Doctors recommended an aggressive treatment plan for Anthony:
- 10 weeks of MAP chemotherapy
- Surgery to remove the bone cancer in his hip
- 17 more weeks of chemotherapy
- Double lung surgery
With their lives upended, the family put together a plan. Andrea focused her time and energy on helping Anthony through treatment, while her husband cared for their young daughter, who was in kindergarten when Anthony was diagnosed. “It made sense, but we felt separated. It was difficult,” Andrea says.
For each chemotherapy treatment, Anthony stayed in the hospital from Monday until Friday. Andrea stayed with him and continued working remotely as an executive assistant from the hospital couch while Anthony slept nearby. “We made it work. We needed the income and the insurance,” she says.
The Cancer Kept Coming Back
During Anthony’s first lung surgery, doctors removed six nodules from one lung and five from the other in an eight-hour-long procedure.
After that surgery, he enrolled in a clinical trial. But his three-month scan showed more nodules. That led to another lung surgery and another clinical trial. Four months after that, they found more cancer in his lungs, and he needed surgery again. “It was rough. It kept coming back. It kept defeating me every time,” Anthony says.
