One of the things I’ve always loved about sports is its ability to bring people together even in the worst of times and serve as a temporary distraction to the harsh realities of real life.
That is exactly the purpose it served this past week when Bryce Newman went to cheer on the Cathedral Catholic high school basketball team with his bald head painted orange like a basketball.
Bryce used to be one of the kids playing sports. He was an athlete on Cathedral’s football and baseball teams until July of 2015 when he went to the emergency room with a headache and was diagnosed with Medulloblastoma – a malignant brain tumor. Since then he’s been in an aggressive battle for his life. But for a small moment, a basketball game gave the Newman family a moment of relief and cause to write this note on Facebook to thank those who helped get their mind off cancer and its obnoxious side-effects.
March 5, 2016 10:36pm
Ok so anyone who has a child battling cancer and has lost all their hair from the chemo and radiation therapies will understand this; cancer not only wrecks your mind and body it tries to take your dignity away also.
Like most children Bryce is self-conscious of the way he looks because his chemo & radiation therapies have made him bald. It is just another cruel twist that cancer throws at these beautiful angels battling this evil disease called Cancer. I am just so proud of our son because even though Bryce is extremely self-conscious of the way he looks he will not let cancer get the better of him.
So his high school “Cathedral Catholic HS” played in the CIF basketball championship tonight and even though they fought hard they unfortunately were runner-ups. But Bryce wanted to do something special for his school to show them how much the students, faculty and his friends that go there mean to him. So he came up with this idea yesterday and this is how he decided to show his school spirit. And trust me on this one, this took more courage than you know because Bryce literally will not take his beanie covering his head off for anyone.
As always we would like to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers.
Thank you and God Bless,
Bryce, Nicole & Rick Newman
Follow the Newman family’s journey on their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/battleforbrycen/