Micah Ali

Back in January, my son, at the age of 17, was experiencing pain in his knee. At the time, we thought it was either growing pains or a basketball injury. We scheduled an appointment for him for March, but ended up missing it because he thought it was getting better.

However, come May, he was out playing basketball with some friends at a nearby park when he got bumped and fell on the knee that had been bothering him. The next thing you know, he was in excruciating pain.

So we took him to urgent care. They told him it was just an injury from basketball, to get some rest over the next week or two, and to not jump or hop on it.

Well, it wasn’t getting better, so he got an appointment with his school’s sports therapist. She had concerns that it hadn’t been getting any better, so she got us into our local sports medicine doctor.

He went in for X-rays, and about a week and a half later, they called us to come in to go over them.

The craziest part is that we were driving there, normal, thinking nothing of cancer, smiling and happy, with no worries.

But then there was the appointment, and they said, cancer.

The ride back home was totally different. It was heartbreak, many questions, worry, sadness, and tears.

Then, just a few days before his 18th birthday and graduation, we found out he had osteosarcoma.