Ryan loves playing soccer and is a determined kid with a positive attitude. When Ryan was a toddler, his mom noticed that his balance was getting worse. She watched him for a week or two, trying to figure out whether it was serious enough to go to the pediatrician about and then decided to take him in.
 
His pediatrician checked his ears to see if they were the cause of the balance problem and ordered bloodwork and a CT scan “just to be safe.” That night Ryan’s mom got the news that her not-quite-three-year-old had a brain tumor, a type of cancer called ependymoma. The next morning they were at the hospital for surgery.
 
Ryan was treated with proton radiation at Mass General Hospital. His mom’s advice to other families who might be going through similar treatment is the quote, “You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future." She and Ryan’s family have tried to take each minute or hour as it comes, enjoy the good and survive the bad, without getting overwhelmed with what the future will bring.
 
Happily, Ryan is in remission and starting second grade this fall. His family’s hope for Ryan is that cancer will stay “far, far away.” His mom says, regarding Ryan’s future, “Happy and healthy is pretty much all I want for him!”
 
She has used the treatment journal from ALSF to keep track of Ryan’s treatment and the family hopes to hold a lemonade stand this fall or next summer to help raise money for childhood cancer research.
 
 
Hero Quote: "I wanna raise money for childhood cancer because I had that and we wanna get rid of it."  
 
Information provided by Jennifer Jackson, Ryan’s Mom
August 2013