8-year-old ‘Husker fan, ESPY winner sees brain tumor return

Unfortunately, there’s some sad news to touch upon right off the bat this morning.

In post made to the family’s blog Wednesday evening, the father of eight-year-old Jack Hoffman revealed that there’s been a recurrence of a cancerous tumor in his son’s brain. A “spot of concern” was found in April, with subsequent testing confirming that the cancer had returned and had grown since it was first spotted.

It was reported in October of last year that the young boy’s cancer was in remission.

“Today we were humbly reminded that when your child has an inoperable brain tumor, that anything can happen at any point in time,” the dad wrote. “Despite Jack’s tumor being declared in remission (stable) last October, today we learned that that is no longer the case.”

The family stated that surgery is now an option, as are multiple chemotherapy treatments.

One of those options includes a clinical trial that is available here in Boston and is a targeted therapy which would target a specific genetic mutation that Jack has (his tumor was tested for this after his 2011 Boston Children’s surgery). Like other cancer treatments, this poses a secondary cancer risk and has other side effects. Plus it would involve extensive travel. We are checking on availability of this trial in Denver.

Hoffman became a heartwarming story in early 2013 when he was “adopted” by the Nebraska football team, with the Cornhuskers, in one of the most uplifting moments you’ll ever see in sports, letting the then-seven-year-old NU super fan suit up for the spring game and score a touchdown.

That led to a meeting with the President of the United States, as well as an ESPY for the best sports moment of 2013.

God bless you, Jack. You have a whole heck of a lot of people still praying for you.