Building "Team Ream"

Well, where to start? Most of you reading this have heard the minor details of how we got here but to throw it out there lets start from the beginning. Brandon being the competitive athlete I fell in love with, came home from his first flag football game of the season nice and sore. Basically, his leg hurt.  We just brushed it off as a pulled muscle/bruise etc..  The pain was not continual and wasn't truly evident until mid October.  After a couple weeks of a throbbing pain (only at night) in his left thigh, he made an appointment with a local orthopedic surgeon and family friend, Dr. Paul Suhey, (yes, for all you Bears fans, this is Matt Suhey's brother).  Dr. Suhey took x-rays, an MRI and referred us to Dr. Parrish, an orthopaedic oncologist in Lancaster, PA.

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Brandon and I hit up the Hershey outlets and made our way to Dr. Parrish's office.  After spending two hours in the waiting room, Dr. Parrish dropped the bomb, "let's get you in to open biopsy surgery tomorrow."  Tomorrow? What is going on?

On November 23rd Dr. Parrish performed an open biopsy of Brandon's left femur at Lancaster General Hospital. The surgery was somewhat intrusive as it requires the surgeon to take an actual sampling of the bone marrow.  He told us he would need to send the biopsy slides to the Mayo Clinic's pathology lab for diagnosis and that this would take at least 10 days.  Brandon was also required to stay on crutches for at least the next month.  We returned home, enjoyed a delicious turkey dinner and spent Thanksgiving weekend the way one should...enjoying family, shopping, watching football with friends and eating leftovers.

We returned with our Mom and Dad to Dr. Parrish's office on December 6th and Dr. Parrish informed us that Brandon had chondroblastic osteosarcoma, a malignant bone tumor and that chemotherapy will be required.

Thankfully, Brandon's Dad had additional appointments lined up and we left Lancaster and drove directly to Baltimore for a second opinion from Kristy Weber, Chief of Orthopaedic Oncology at Johns Hopkins and then onto Philadelphia for a third opinion from Dr.Richard Lackman, Director of the Sarcoma Center of Excellence at the University of Pennsylvania.

We immediately recognized that The University of Pennsylvania, "just felt right".  Dr. Lackman is widely recognized as one of the worldwide experts in osteosarcoma and has been performing surgeries to eliminate such tumors for 28 years.  He arranged for us to meet directly with Arthur "Chip" Staddon, Medical Director of the Joan Karnell Cancer Center and sarcoma expert.  The physicians were very familiar as their names repeatedly came up while we were seeking referrals.  In fact, they were the  physicians identified to treat a similar sarcoma that affected NY Giant and former Boston College Linebacker Mark Herzlich.  Additionally,  Brandon's Mom felt that the name Chip Staddon sounded particularly familiar and upon meeting him, she recognized him as the same person who owned a condo in Palm Beach above Brandon's Grandparents.  Mama and PopPop had a longstanding relationship with  Dr. Staddon's family and had looked over the family's condo through the years.   With the addition of Dr. Staddon's Nurse Practicioners Carla and Laetitia, we had officially found our treatment team and the key additions to "TEAM REAM".   Now, the next step - treatment.

We're happy to report that we will be starting therapy this week.  The treatment team, will insert a chemotherapy port on Tuesday, December 13th and we will begin our first outpatient chemotherapy session on Wednesday, December 14th.  This consists of one 7 hour infusion and then a few nights at a hotel in Philadelphia so that the physicians can observe Brandon's response during his daily visits to the hospital and Sam and Becky can power shop on Walnut Street.

Again, thank you for your love, kind words and prayers.  As we take the next steps on our road to recovery, we are truly grateful to be surrounded by two loving and supportive families and an unbelievable group of friends.

Please continue to check back, Sam and Brandon will do their best to update the blog as frequently as possible; keeping everyone up to date on our progress!

With Love,

Brandon and Sam