Stories of progress, inspiration, and information in overcoming osteosarcoma.
Sam Shumadine was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in spring 2022 when he was heavily involved in sports, playing soccer, basketball, and tennis at his Norfolk, Virginia high school.
“Sam was a pretty decent athlete — he played a lot of sports,” says his father, Jim Shumadine. “He had some knee issues when he was playing indoor soccer that cropped up again on the basketball court. But he always bounced back from them.”
Then, the spring tennis season started, and Sam told his parents that his knee was really bothering him. “So, I called to get a doctor’s appointment set up,” Jim says. “I thought he had torn a meniscus or something like that.”
On April 13, Sam and his dad headed to the appointment where Sam had an X-ray.
“It was one of those appointments where it took them forever,” Jim says. “We had a wonderful doctor, and when he finally came in, he looked at us and said, ‘I’ve written this down because you won’t remember a thing I say after this.’ And he asked, ‘Do you know where the children’s hospital is? Can you get there now?’ And so that was the beginning of our osteosarcoma journey.”
After an MRI and visits with the local pediatric oncology group, the family headed to Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, where they met with a surgeon and a biopsy was ordered, confirming Sam had osteosarcoma. Jim said the teams at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters and Johns Hopkins were both very optimistic about Sam’s prognosis, and he began chemotherapy the following week.
When their surgeon at Johns Hopkins left for another institution, Sam and his family decided to explore other options for where to go for care. They ultimately decided to have his surgery at the Duke Children’s Hospital in North Carolina due to proximity and having family in the area.
Sam started chemotherapy treatment at Children’s Hospital, which was just down the street from his house, in late April.
“He did the standard MAP protocol,” says Sam’s mom, Elizabeth. “But if there was a side effect to be had, he had it. He would always have to come home on fluids because he was so nauseous.”
Sam had surgery Aug. 1, 2022. Follow-up imaging at Duke confirmed that Sam’s cancer had spread to his lungs.
“That was a blow knowing what that does for the prognosis,” Elizabeth says. “And then a few weeks later we got the pathology report that showed that all that chemo that had made him so sick and miserable for those many months had not touched the cancer. We had less than 5% necrosis. It was not effective at all.”
While Sam’s prognosis had taken a downturn, he continued participating in school and extracurriculars as much as he was able while he tried new treatment options, including a clinical trial at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston that was funded by the Osteosarcoma Institute.
“He went back Jan. 3, 2023, when school started,” Jim says. “He was there for the rest of the year, was with his class, and was having a great time.”
Sam had a very strong connection to his school, and that community rallied around him.
“The tennis team had ‘Shumiestrong’ shirts made up to wear — and then the entire school had those shirts made up [to support] him, which was pretty cool,” Jim says.
Although Sam had missed the fall semester for treatment and was taking junior classes in what was supposed to be his senior year, his school treated him like a senior.
“He went on a senior trip, and he parked in the senior lot,” Elizabeth says. “When he felt well, he worked as the manager of the soccer team in the fall and then the basketball team in the winter.”
During holiday break on New Year’s Eve, Sam called his parents and said, ‘I am going to a party.’ “And we were like, ‘What? OK, how are you feeling?’ He said, ‘I feel great, do not worry about it.’ So, he went to the party where he saw so many of his friends. Elizabeth went to pick him up early because he was tired.”
Sam passed away three days later in January 2024. On the day of his funeral, to honor Sam, his headmaster closed the entire school campus and canceled activities so that classmates and teachers could attend his service.
“That would have been his happiest moment — that he got everyone a day off,” Jim says.
Sam requested that his savings from his summer job and holiday gifts go to osteosarcoma research. Following Sam’s passing, Elizabeth and Jim formally established the Shumiestrong Osteosarcoma Science Fund with the Osteosarcoma Institute to carry forward Sam’s legacy. Elizabeth and Sam’s sister, Charlotte, decided to follow Sam’s example and ran an 8K in March 2024 to raise funds in Sam’s memory and in honor of Sam’s oncologist at Dana-Farber, Dr. Katie Janeway. They raised $18,000.
Elizabeth and Charlotte ran the 8K again this year on March 15 and raised $38,715. With support from Sam’s trusted local oncologist, the family chose to direct the money they raised toward a new study led by Robin Parihar, MD, PhD, at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Parihar’s research is aimed at reducing the toxicity and improve the effectiveness of CAR-T therapies.
“[This is] a promising approach that could change the future of osteosarcoma and neuroblastoma treatment,” Elizabeth stated in a note to friends and family. “This study is laying the foundation for a planned and already partially funded clinical trial, and all of the 2025 contributions to Sam’s fund will go toward ensuring this research reaches completion.”
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