The Indomitable Spirit of a Remarkable Athlete Inspires Hope for Life's Toughest Challenge
By David Wright
His amazing story began in 1973 when, at age 16, he collapsed in his school gym outside Detroit with searing pain in one knee. “The doctors told me I had osteogenic sarcoma, a cancer so rare it strikes only about 900 people in the United States every year—almost all children,” he said. “It was destroying the healthy cells of my knee joint.” His anguished parents—both medical doctors—stood by his bedside as the surgeon told him he was going to amputate at seven o’clock next morning. “To make things worse, I ended up with a five-inch stump—way too short to work well with a prosthesis,” he said. Three years later, with Jothy adjusted to his new life and confident on crutches or a wooden leg, he nicknamed ‘Herbie,’ tragedy struck again. “I went for a routine checkup and they found the cancer had come back and spread to my lungs,” said Jothy. “I was 19, in my sophomore year of college, and I heard a doctor telling me bluntly that no-one with this kind of cancer had survived once it spread through the bloodstream. He might as well have said, ‘You have zero chance of survival’—because that’s the message my brain heard.”Jothy Rosenberg was just a normal, happy-go-lucky high school kid when he came face-to-face with the first of the formidable challenges that have shaped his extraordinary life.
From TakeTheMagicStep.com:
The Indomitable Spirit of a Remarkable Athlete Inspires Hope for Life's Toughest Challenge
By David Wright
His amazing story began in 1973 when, at age 16, he collapsed in his school gym outside Detroit with searing pain in one knee. “The doctors told me I had osteogenic sarcoma, a cancer so rare it strikes only about 900 people in the United States every year—almost all children,” he said. “It was destroying the healthy cells of my knee joint.” His anguished parents—both medical doctors—stood by his bedside as the surgeon told him he was going to amputate at seven o’clock next morning. “To make things worse, I ended up with a five-inch stump—way too short to work well with a prosthesis,” he said. Three years later, with Jothy adjusted to his new life and confident on crutches or a wooden leg, he nicknamed ‘Herbie,’ tragedy struck again. “I went for a routine checkup and they found the cancer had come back and spread to my lungs,” said Jothy. “I was 19, in my sophomore year of college, and I heard a doctor telling me bluntly that no-one with this kind of cancer had survived once it spread through the bloodstream. He might as well have said, ‘You have zero chance of survival’—because that’s the message my brain heard.”Jothy Rosenberg was just a normal, happy-go-lucky high school kid when he came face-to-face with the first of the formidable challenges that have shaped his extraordinary life.
Read the rest of this nice article at TakeTheMagicStep.com