Christian R - Palmer

Christian Rehe, an active 21-year-old with high functioning autism and 4-time Taekwondo medalist at USAT Taekwondo Nationals, began having knee pain back in January during a Taekwondo class. We all just shook it off as a minor injury. It didn’t get better, so in March I took him to an urgent care clinic where the doctor thought since there wasn’t any swelling and because he’s been cutting back on how much Taekwondo he was doing, so that he could focus more on studies at Job Corps in their electrical program, that it was simply runners knee. He followed through with the doctor’s orders of exercises and things still didn’t get better, if anything it was getting worse. We changed doctors in May from the base to a local clinic in the valley. His new doctor saw him and thought he had a meniscus tear. During this exam there was definite swelling with his right knee, so she sent him for an MRI. She called me with the results of Christian’s MRI on my wedding anniversary, while I was with my Mom who is visiting, at Colony Day’s in Palmer. She was very concerned and did not want to give me this information over the phone but considering the circumstances it needed to be. She had to tell my multiple times that they thought he had osteosarcoma and that I needed to pick him up immediately from Job Corps and get him to the base hospital on JBER for further imaging. I had no idea what osteosarcoma was at that point. I asked her what it was and that’s when she told me that it is cancer. His MRI showed a tumor on his right distal femur, which is a rare cancer. My mom and I immediately left the Colony Day’s event in Palmer and drove over to Job Corps to get permission to pick Christian up from a field trip that they had all earned. Upon getting to Job Corps had to talk with their security guard on duty at the time and explained who I needed to speak with immediately and why. Everyone I needed to speak with was busy. I told him he had better find someone to get me permission to pick him up now. He was able to get someone who gave me permission and I left to go pick Christian up from the Valley Cinema. From there we headed to the JBER hospital for at CT Scan and x-rays, while answering his questions and avoiding telling him that they think he has cancer. We had many many phone calls the next several days and issues with where he was going to be sent for treatment. Since there are not any sarcoma teams in the state of Alaska, they finally agreed to send him to be treated at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. Once in Seattle I was able to transfer Christian’s care over to Seattle Children’s Hospital, since they have the better team for this cancer. Christian started chemo back in July and is now currently in his 12th of 18 rounds. He had his Limb Salvage Surgery to remove the tumor in his right distal femur in September. He’s has been to many PT appointments and has many many more to go. He is currently only able to put 25% of his body weight on his right leg and is dependent upon using a walker to get around. Christian has recently started having regular nose bleeds due to the chemo and has needed to have one platelet transfusion. Christian was attending the Alaska Job Corps electrical program when this was found. He was over 50% complete in their program and is liked by all the staff. Their Center Director told me that if she could have 500 more of Christian, she’d take them no questions asked. He is currently on a temporary medical leave, which expires mid-December. The medical staff there are applying for an extension to his medical leave, but it must go through their Regional office. We have had to set up a second household in Seattle while Christian and I are here for his treatment. While still maintaining our permanent household in Palmer. Christian has been thinking and realizing a little at a time just how this is going to affect the rest of his life and there are things that he is no longer going to be able to do. He is quite ready to return home and on good days jokes around asking about a return or exchange policy on his body and how to go about getting a new one. He really just wants to be done and to go home. We were first told that we would get to go home in March but found out later that best-case scenario we could go home in mid-February.