LSU coach Les Miles invited a Birmingham, Ala., teen with cancer to last Saturday’s thrilling 45-21 win against Auburn.
Sid Ortis, who was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in August 2014, has been a lifelong LSU fan and got to fulfill a dream of watching one of the most anticipated games of the season from the coaches’ box.
Ortis had formed a bond with Miles, who first reached out to him in early November. Miles had heard about Ortis’ diagnosis and decided to call him on the Friday before the Tigers’ game against Alabama last November.
"He told him, 'Life is not how long you live, but how well you live it,’” Ortis’ mother, Lynn, told AL.com. "He was chatty chatty. And then he asked if he could pray with him, and he did. It was surreal.”
In the summer of 2014, Ortis returned from a summer basketball camp complaining of tightness in his knee. Since Ortis, then 15, was going to try out for the Mountain Brook High School team that fall, his parents took him to the doctor to get it checked out.
On Aug. 6, Ortis was diagnosed with bone cancer. He went through 10 weeks of chemotherapy and had his knee and part of his femur replaced with steel. Two weeks later, doctors found six spots on his lung, which required 10 more weeks of chemo.
In March, Ortis underwent a bilateral thoracotomy after doctors found more spots on his lung.
Ortis announced via Twitter on Monday, just two days after celebrating LSU’s win with Miles, that he was heading back into the operating room.
Last year, Ortis’ friends set up a fund called “Strike Out Pediatric Cancer” to raise money for pediatric cancer research at Children's of Alabama in Birmingham. It allowed people to pledge a donation for every strikeout Mountain Brook High School pitchers on the freshman, junior varsity and varsity baseball teams threw last year. The teams struck out 423 batters last year and have raised $48,730. It’s still accepting individual donations.
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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @YahooDrSaturday
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