Many people asked us how they could help Patrick and our family as we navigated the difficult and treacherous paths presented when fighting osteosarcoma, truly a rollercoaster of hope and despair. While the obvious logistics and side effects of treatment were challenging, there was only one thing we ever needed - a CURE for this horrible disease.
Patrick fought courageously against this insidious and relentless foe since his initial diagnosis in 2018 and even more valiantly so since the first of many metastases appeared in early 2024. He persevered through half a dozen brutally morbid surgeries (measuring his scars in yards), powered through the complications of thirteen chemotherapy drugs, and absorbed radiation to his lungs, sacrum, brain, and elsewhere. All this and more he endured while continuing to make plans for his future with hope and positivity.
When Patrick was diagnosed at the age of twelve, he was a champion Irish dancer as well as a stand-out lacrosse and hockey player. After his limb salvage surgery and initial chemo treatment, he reinvented himself as an Irish fiddler and rower. He studied fiddle in Ireland and finished fifth at the Head of the Charles Regatta in 2023 (behind only past adult Paralympians). Patrick planned to study biochemistry in college and pursue a PhD to become a cancer researcher, but he was forced to defer his freshman year when osteosarcoma shockingly reared its ugly head again five years after initial treatment.
The primary treatment protocol for osteosarcoma has not changed in over 40 years. The chemotherapy agents employed are even older and the required surgeries are massively invasive and life altering. Second line treatment, employed after initial treatment failure or relapse, is older, less effective, and equally toxic. Beyond that any options lack sufficient data and are generally ineffective. As a patient and parent, the choices made during treatment are always clouded by incomplete information before and after and generally are of the form, "likely really bad versus hopefully less bad."
During his final lucid moments, Patrick requested that “all [his] money go for research for the other kids with osteo.” His life savings of $10,331 were donated to kickstart this fund. He also shared on his deathbed that “I don’t want anyone else to suffer like I did.” Despite all the brutality of his treatment and rehabilitation, this was the only time he ever described his ordeal as suffering.
We implore you to support Patrick’s dying wish by contributing to his osteosarcoma research fund with MIB Agents. With your assistance, we will Make It Better for everyone else who suffers from this sinister disease.
FACTOR brings together the leading researchers, clinicians, surgeons, together with patient families and OsteoWarriors to Make It Better for those battling this disease.
Each year a grant of $100,000 is awarded to a project that will focus on moving research forward for osteosarcoma patients.
Browse our extensive list of osteosarcoma resources from MIB Agents and our partner organizations.
OsteoBites is a weekly webinar and podcast where we invite Osteosarcoma Experts and OsteoWarriors to share their research, hope, and innovation.
Agent GAMERS game with their fellow OsteoWarriors and OsteoSiblings.
Ambassador Agents are certified peer visitors who provide hope, understanding, and resources.
OsteoWarriors receive monthly letters of hope and cheer from MIB Agent Writers around the world.
When an OsteoWarrior transitions to hospice care, MIB Agents provides an experience or an item of comfort and entertainment.
The OsteoWarriors HQ (headquarters) brings kids and young adults who have a connection to osteosarcoma together and It. Is. Awesome!
A world with less toxic, more effective treatments and a cure for osteosarcoma.
We are devoted to creating and instilling hope with and for our inclusive and collaborative osteosarcoma community. We do this through mutual trust, transparency and compassion.
