Brave cancer teen keeps fighting

[caption id="attachment_95989" align="alignright" width="300"] COURAGEOUS FAMILY: Jason Sherman, his dad
Wayne, and mom Jenny show the strength to
carry on the struggle against the teen’s cancer[/caption]

Jason an inspiration to all as disease returns after four years

AFTER 15 operations and midway through a second gigantic battle with bone cancer, a Port Elizabeth teenager is fast becoming a celebrity in Cape Town’s hospitals.

Jason Sherman, an only child, is inspiring other patients and families with his attitude, courage and hopeful nature.

In Vincent Pallotti Hospital in Pinelands, patients and doctors would often spot the gutsy 15-year-old talking to families.

“The doctors would even tell him, go talk to this one or that family. He will hobble over there on his crutches and say: ‘Look at me. You can do this’,” his proud mom, Jenny Sherman, said from Cape Town this week.

In January 2011, Jason, then 10, was diagnosed with a type of bone cancer.

“There was a 17cm malignant tumour in his femur [thigh bone].

“After three months of chemotherapy, forced to stay in bed for four days at a time to be connected to a drip, he had to go in for 6½-hour major surgery.”

But it was later discovered Jason’s cells still had cancer.

Next came intensive chemotherapy at Red Cross Hospital.

“Since then Jason had another 10 surgeries, an ankle operation, growth plates had to be removed, screws had to be replaced, more limb salvage surgery, as well as another open leg surgery where they had to add a donor bone.

“His legs have titanium plates, rods and screws. The radiologists always gasp at his X-rays,” Sherman said.

“Jason was then confined to a wheelchair.

“He responded well and learnt to do the perfect wheelie,” his mom laughed. “He had to have some excitement in his life!”

After a year in the wheelchair, Jason then had to walk on crutches for the next two years.

“Officially we still live in Port Elizabeth,” Sherman said.

-Estelle Ellis