Story by Bobby Lewis, WTSP
Last fall, Cody Hansen III was working out and felt some discomfort in his back. He assumed it was regular soreness.
“I thought I hurt myself lifting weights and the pain didn’t go away,” he said.
For weeks he went to experts to get checked out. Because his pain hung around even while resting, doctors determined his pain wasn’t related to activity.
No one knew what it was for sure.
“It’s a parent’s worst nightmare,” said Cody Hansen Jr. “I thought my son had cancer. That he could die from it.”
Cody decided to seek help from the doctors at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Tampa. Another facility had taken x-rays and found a mass on his spine. They began giving him chemotherapy treatments.
It turned out, those were unnecessary.
“They go from, you know, I’ve got back pain, my boy simply has back pain, to he has a life-threatening malignant tumor to it wasn’t malignant and we’ve removed all of it and he has a life expectancy of any other young boy,” said Dr. David Siambanes, who performed spinal surgery on Cody. “It’s a whirlwind of emotions, too.”
Siambanes and another surgeon tag-teamed the procedure. During the six-hour surgery, Cody was laid on his back while one surgeon went in from the back and another went in from the front. It was the most comprehensive way to try and remove the fist-sized tumor, which had begun to enclose itself around Cody’s spinal cord. Paralysis was a definite possibility.
Cody and his family found out on Christmas Eve that the tumor was not cancerous. Now, six months later, he’s resumed normal function and is walking without pain.
“It’s life changing,” said the rising high school senior. “I was almost paralyzed before the procedure.”
To help with Cody’s medical expenses, visit his GoFund Me page.
