Teddy liked soccer, basketball, and hanging out with his friends. He liked reading "Goosebumps" and "39 Clues" books. His favorite TV shows were "Sponge Bob" and "The Simpsons". The Boston Red Sox were his favorite baseball team. He lived in Fairfield with his mom, his dad, his older brother John, his younger sister Gillian and his beagle Maddie.
In November of 2009, Teddy was diagnosed with an undifferentiated sarcoma, which is a malignant soft-tissue tumor. It was located in his chest area, and initially, its size and location made it a poor candidate for surgery. He underwent four rounds of chemotherapy at Yale New Haven Hospital, which helped somewhat in reducing the size of his tumor, and then on February 9, he underwent surgery at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital at NY Presbyterian. The doctors were able to remove almost the entire tumor, except for one small piece that was attached to his heart. After a week of recovery in the hospital, Teddy had a second procedure, where the doctor removed the remaining tumor, and then patched his heart. After 5 days in recovery, he was discharged and sent home. Six weeks later he started proton beam radiation therapy, which lasted 7 weeks, and entailed numerous drives to and from Boston, and lots of time away from family and friends. Even still, Teddy made the most of it -- going to 4 Red Sox games (they won all 4!), eating out at restaurants, visiting museums and watching episodes of "Lost" on DVD.
It was a scary, painful and difficult fight, but Teddy was amazing in his reserves of strength and good humor. He read a lot, and kept up with his studies. He took the Cogats in January and took the CMTs in March. He wanted to be able to swim in his pool this summer and go to Block Island on vacation. He wanted to be able to cheer his travel soccer team on, and make a trip back to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox win another game. And he wanted to do all of the other things that 9 year old boys do.
Throughout the past nine months, the Osborn Hill community helped and supported Teddy and his family - cooking dinner, carpooling, and just checking in to make sure everyone was doing OK. They had a huge St. Baldrick's Event at Osborn Hill which raised thousands of dollars. Even more importantly, Teddy had a great time -- at one point he took off his hooded sweatshirt (which he wore almost nonstop throughout his treatment), because, as he said, "I'm not the only bald person here anymore."
A few weeks after Teddy finished his radiation treatment, he had to be hospitalized. Scans showed that his disease had recurred and now there were multiple tumors where before there had only been one. Despite the efforts of his oncologist, Teddy grew progressively worse throughout the summer, and passed away early on the morning of August 16, 2010. He simply fell asleep and did not wake up, and was not in any pain.
Teddy's cancer was so rare and so aggressive that traditional, standard chemotherapy had little effect on it. Our hope, moving forward, is that thanks to St. Baldrick's money raised, doctors and researchers will be able to pinpoint new, more effective targeted therapies so that no child has to endure what Teddy did, and that every child with cancer -- no matter how rare -- has a good chance of surviving and leading a long and meaningful life.
