CONROE, Texas – Joseph Upshaw was diagnosed with a cancer that was only documented one time before — ever — in another country. However, his parents never gave up on finding his cure, and now Joseph gets to experience his first Christmas without cancer.
“It was pretty obvious since the beginning, since Joseph was a baby because he being the fourth kid, you know, I noticed that something was wrong with his eye,” Joseph’s mother Maria Robles Upshaw said. “They were treated as infections.”
What was thought to be an infection was actually a rapidly growing tumor.
“It was this rare type of tumor called a spindle cell tumor,” said Dr. Jennifer Foster, Pediatric Oncologist with Texas Children’s Hospital. “Unfortunately, about a year after that, his tumor came back and came back pretty aggressively and grew quite large, back again in his eye and that eyelid. At that time, we took another sample of the tumor and this time it had very unexpectedly changed and transformed into a very rare form of tumor that we call an undifferentiated sarcoma.”
“I know they were kind of prepping us for the worst. I don’t think any doctor here imagine the outcome that he had,” said Joseph’s father Justin Upshaw.
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Joseph has no vision impairments, there’s been no sign of the cancer spreading, and right now, there’s no cancer at all.
“April 31st this year, he finished treatment and did his bell ringing here and now it’s just been scans, full body scans every three months,” said Justin Upshaw. “He’s about seven months now with clean scans. So, you know, we’re halfway through a little more than halfway through that first year. So, every time we come for a scan, anxiety levels are high.”
“Thank God they have been good, clean scans,” said Maria Robles Upshaw. “He is a miracle child.”
Even with all of the miraculous cases at our local cancer centers, pediatric patients don’t receive a lot of funding. The government doesn’t designate a lot of money to these sick kids, which is why donations are critical.
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The Houston-based, Lombardi Awards are a highly esteemed college football award designed to raise funds for cancer.
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