Seth M. Gitner/The Roanoke Times

Jerry Tyree plays with his son Jacob, 9, while they sit in the waiting room before one of Jacob's radiation treatments. Although the treatments are short, they require careful preparation and often leave Jacob tired and sick.

Wednesday, April 03, 2002
Jacob Tyree battles aggressive type of astrocytoma
Salem youngster gamely balances sandlot baseball, spinal tumor

A Jacob Tyree benefit will be held April 27 at Mason Cove Church of the Brethren on Bradshaw Road, featuring food, a yard sale and silent auction.

By JOE KENNEDY
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   Last year, Jean Tyree sent a Salem pediatrician a letter and a videotape of her son Jacob, 9, running with some friends. She had noticed his clumsiness as he played sandlot baseball. She asked the pediatrician to look at the tape and give her an opinion.

    The pediatrician referred Jacob to a neurologist. At his request, Jacob ran flawlessly down that doctor's office hallway. Maybe, Tyree thought, she was imagining things.

    But an MRI revealed what the jog did not: Jacob had a tumor, and not just any tumor.

    Doctors at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville diagnosed it as an astrocytoma. Such tumors are slow-growing and found mostly in children's brains.

    Jacob's tumor is in his spinal cord. It's a hairy thing that "looks like an octopus," his mother said, "and it has all these tentacles that can weave in and out of other nerves." In Jacob's case, the cells are so enmeshed within the regular nerves in his cord that a Charlottesville surgeon could not remove them all.

    A pediatric neuro-oncologist in Washington who looked at the situation told the Tyrees that Jacob's type of astrocyte is more aggressive than most and will continue to mix with other tissues.

Standing against an unsure future

    No one appears to know what that will mean.

    For now, Jacob must wear hinged braces on his legs and, as a result of the back surgery, a hard plastic thoracic brace that looks like a turtle shell. It reaches from his upper back to halfway past his buttocks and keeps him upright. He wears it 10 to 15 hours each day and eventually will wear it for 20.

    For now he can play pretty normally and is the family's X-box ace. But his parents and brother Cooper, 8, know that if things go poorly, Jacob could need a wheelchair one day. They don't know whether the tumor will eventually threaten his life.

    Jacob loves baseball. This week, his sandlot team began to practice, and he was out there with them. He recently finished the last of 22 radiation sessions he received on weekdays for just over a month at UVa. The treatments were short, but the preparation took a lot of time.

    The doctors had to be careful because Jacob's tumor is just behind his esophagus, stomach and intestines, which the radiation could harm.

    Jacob became nauseated and vomited violently after the second session. But he hung tough, as he has throughout his ordeal.

    He is glad the treatments are finished.

    "I get to eat pizza and spaghetti now," he said.

    "I couldn't eat it because I'd throw it up."

It takes a village to help a child

    This tumor has just about torn the hearts out of Jean, a rehabilitation nurse, her husband, Jerry, a rural mail carrier, and Cooper. The Mason Cove community has risen to help.

    A Jacob Tyree benefit will be held April 27 at Mason Cove Church of the Brethren on Bradshaw Road. It will run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and include food, a yard sale and silent auction.

    A Jacob Tyree trust fund has been set up at FNB Southwest in Salem. Contributions earmarked for Jacob may be sent to the bank at 40 W. Main St., Salem, VA 24153.

    In addition, the Tyrees are selling tickets for Sunday's Salem Avalanche baseball game at 2 p.m. against the Potomac Cannons at Salem Memorial Stadium. Two dollars of every $5 ticket they sell will go to Jacob's trust fund. The fund will receive an extra 50 cents for each ticket actually used to attend the game, Jacob's mother said. So far, they have sold more than 600 tickets.

    You can order tickets by calling 384-6661.

    Jerry Tyree told me about Jacob's tumor, the straight A's he has received as a fourth-grader at Mason's Cove Elementary School and his love of baseball.

    "Before we had this tumor," he said, "he was a great player, particularly in the field. The boy has a glove that will get anything close to him. He truly makes a dad proud."

    Jacob's future cannot be foreseen, but it is possible that his ball playing days are numbered. That bleak fact moved his father to e-mail Stan Macko, the general manager of the Salem Avalanche, to explain Jacob's situation and to ask for a favor: Could Jacob throw out the first ball at one of the team's games?

    "This may not be a big deal to some people," he told me, "but this may be the biggest thing I can ever witness my son doing."

    Macko said yes.

    And so, Sunday afternoon at 2 in Salem, Jacob, a small boy, will do a manly thing - he will throw a baseball from the mound to the glove of a waiting catcher.

    I hope he realizes how many people are rooting for him.

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