Beecher teen plays waiting game with treatments complete

BEECHER | For 33 sessions, 15-year-old Jonathan Larson would lay perfectly still, sometimes as long as almost three hours, to make sure the cancerous tumors on his spine were receiving the proton radiation therapy and no healthy tissue was damaged.

With those sessions now complete, Larson, a sophomore at Beecher High School, has returned to school and must begin a waiting game punctuated with MRIs every few months, because he won't know if the proton radiation therapy worked until three years from now.

"I just think that he made it look easy," said his mother, Debbie Larson. "He said, 'This is what I need to do, and I'm going to get it done."

Larson had one cancerous tumor removed from his spine in October, but the rest had to be treated with proton radiation therapy in 33 treatments that began in December and ended this month. Larson and his mother moved down to Bloomington, Ind., for that time to receive the treatments at Indiana University Health Proton Therapy Center, formerly the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute.

In October, Larson was diagnosed with multifocal myxopapillary ependymoma, or multiple cancerous slow-growing tumors on his spine. The diagnosis was rare, but doctors at University of Chicago told the boy's mother because her son also has hereditary angioedema, she had a better chance of playing the lottery and winning than having a son diagnosed with both conditions.

Doctors were able to operate on one tumor, but the others would need to be removed with radiation. Because of the hereditary disease, conventional radiation wasn't an option for Larson, who would need proton radiation therapy, which can more precisely target the cancer, sparing healthy cells the radiation.

Larson did so well receiving the treatments, that his doctor often asked him to call other children who were scheduled to receive the treatments, but were feeling scared, Debbie Larson said. Still, the multiple weeks in Bloomington left Larson missing his friends and family, and occasionally nauseous, a hit to a teen who loves to eat.

Friends organized a benefit to help the family with medical expenses. Debbie Larson said more than 300 people attended the event last Saturday, including a nurse from IU Health Proton Therapy Center.

Larson will turn 16 on Sunday, and his mother said she asked him where he wanted to go for his birthday.

"He said, 'I don't want to go anywhere,'" Debbie Larson said. "He said, 'I'm just happy to be alive.'"