Originally appeared on Survivor Net
An American Paralympian won something better than any medal — in addition to a gold medal — while competing in Tokyo this week.
Sam Grewe, 23, posted a photo on Twitter of a letter he received from a family whose young son, 10, is battling osteosarcoma. That’s the same disease Grewe was diagnosed with at the age of 13, undergoing a pseudo-amputation procedure known as a rotationplasty to remove the cancer from his bone.
“A local Japanese man just handed me this note shortly after I arrived at the track to compete,” Grese wrote on Twitter. “Win or lose, this is what it’s all about. This makes it all worth it.”
The note revealed that the “local Japanese man” was a member of the Olympic Organizing Committee, Masaki Kondo.
“My son had osteosarcoma of the right knee at the age of 10 and had surgery of the rotation plasty,” the note reads.
Kondo went on to say that he could find no information about what happened after the amputation surgery, which was a cause of great anxiety for him and the family.
Then, the family saw a segment about Grewe on television.
“High Jump the World Champion! You gave us great courage to my family. We are grateful to you,” Kondo wrote. “We are all rooting for you.”
He then closed out by revealing the entire family, including his son, would be watching Grewe compete that day.
Grewe did go on to claim that gold medal, one of his many accomplishments of recent.
He managed to turn his academic career around despite some major setbacks.
He noted this back in 2020 when he tweeted: “Gonna brag for a second because I’m incredibly proud of myself. Two years of cancer treatment led me to enter high school with a 6th-grade education. Today, I’ve just completed my third consecutive semester on the Dean’s List at the University of Notre Dame.”
That was just the start, as Grewe will now be taking his gold medal with him to the University of Michigan, where he started his first year of medical school last month.
Sarcoma Symptoms
The main symptom of sarcoma is a slow-growing, painless mass, which makes it hard for many to detect until the later stages of the disease.
“Unfortunately, most sarcomas do not cause many of the symptoms that may be associated with other cancers,” Dr. Dale Shepard, director of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute Phase I and Sarcoma Programs, previously told SurvivorNet.
Shepard explained that this often leads to large tumors at the time of diagnosis.
“Soft tissue sarcomas are typically painless,” Dr. Shepard explained. “Bone sarcomas may be mistaken for orthopedic injuries. A mass the size of a golf ball or larger and growing should be evaluated as a potential sarcoma. Patients who do have symptoms mustn’t be dismissive of them.”
Types of Sarcomas
The word sarcoma refers to a large array of bone and soft tissue cancers, and those are then further broken down into more specific forms of the disease, including:
Ewing’s sarcoma
A cancer that typically occurs in and around the bones, often in the arms or legs, or the bones of the pelvis. It most commonly occurs in children and young adults.
Kaposi sarcoma
A very rare type of cancer that causes lesions on the skin, in lymph nodes, organs, and the mucous membranes of the mouth, nose, and throat. It typically affects people with compromised immune systems, such as those with HIV.
Epithelioid sarcoma
A soft tissue cancer that grows slowly. It is likely to begin under the skin of areas like the finger, hand, forearm, lower part of the leg, or foot.
Synovial sarcoma
Also known as a malignant (cancerous) synovioma, this is a cancer that can form soft tissues such as muscle or ligaments, commonly close to joints or in areas like the arm, leg, or foot.
Osteogenic sarcoma
Also known as osteosarcoma, this cancer forms in the bone and is most common in young children.
Spindle cell sarcoma
A rare form of the disease that accounts for less than 2% of all primary bone cancer cases. It’s most common in adults over 40 and often forms in the bones of the arms, legs, and pelvis.