Hockey Friends, Foes Rally Support to Give Ryan Hope
Filed under: Minor League Hockey
On Feb. 3, Jeff and Dorie Christian picked up their 8-year-old daughter Ryan, their only child, from school and spent the rest of the day as a family. In their latest hometown of Independence, Mo. — Jeff is a 20-year pro hockey player now playing in the Central League — the Christians went to Walmart and watched Ryan practice with her basketball team.
“Just a nice, normal, beautiful day,” said Jeff, a 1988 second-round pick of the New Jersey Devils and now a player-assistant coach with the Missouri Mavericks.
The next day, Ryan came home early from school complaining of headaches. When her mother attempted to wake her a few hours later for a doctor’s appointment, the young girl was unresponsive. Ryan was taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., where doctors stabilized her and performed a CAT scan and MRI. While at the hospital, she began to suffer seizures caused by extremely high blood pressure. More tests followed until the answer finally came.
Ryan had a tumor on her adrenal gland that needed to be removed — immediately. The diagnosis was Pedriatric Adrenalcortical Carcinoma, cancer near her kidney that is considered to be a one-in-a-million case. Today, she is under the care of the renowned physicians at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis.
The original article and other great content can be found at this URL: http://nhl.fanhouse.com/2010/03/09/hockey-friends-foes-rally-support-to-give-ryan-hope/
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