Mt. Tabor Boy Offers 'Glimmer of Hope' to Tumor Survivors

Sean Ries of Mount Tabor was just like any other five year old boy, until a seizure led doctors to discover a tumor the size of a golf ball growing inside his head.

Ries was diagnosed with a dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumor (DNET) in 2012, just after celebrating his fifth birthday.

Six weeks after two uncertain surgeries, Ries participated in the Miles for Hope 2012 and later joined the Children’s Brain Tumor Project as an Ambassador for the Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center in New York City.

As an Ambassador, Ries shares his success story with children who have a similar diagnosis.

On Saturday, July 27, Ries will be honored by the Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center at the second annual Miles for Hope event in Flushing Meadow Park.

After he was diagnosed, Sean's parents were told by several neurosurgeons that although surgery was the best option for brain tumors, he should not have surgery because of the location of the tumor.

“Surgery could even be 'curative' if the whole tumor were removed, but Sean’s tumor was very large, and it was located in and near the areas of his brain that control speech and motor functions,” said Sean's mother Brenda in her Weill Cornell testimonial. “Removing the tumor would likely result in massive neurological injury.”

The family became optimistic after speaking with Weill Cornell Dr. Jeffrey Greenfield, who said his goal was to find a safe way to operate so that Sean could be healthy and live to be 90. This was extremely reassuring for the family, who up until that point were told there was an 80 percent chance Sean would be alive in five years, his mother said.

“Dr. Greenfield was cautiously optimistic that a two-stage approach could succeed,” said Roseann Foley Henry, marketing manager for Weill Cornell's Department of Neurological Surgery. “One surgery placed intracranial grids directly on the surface of Sean’s brain to map his speech and motor functions.”

In the second surgery, performed in May 2012, Greenfield removed the grids along with 85 to 90 percent of the tumor. However, the family wouldn't know if Sean's speech and motor skills were affected until he woke up.

“When we first saw Sean as he woke up, he looked at me, put out his arms and cried 'mommy' in the saddest, pained little voice,” said Brenda. “We nearly dropped to our knees with relief! He was talking and moving, and despite how bad he looked our tears of joy wouldn’t stop.”

The very next month after surgery, Sean participated in his pre-school graduation and attended kindergarten in the fall.

“Our hope is that Sean’s can be one of those stories with a happy ending, that he can give a glimmer hope to another family out there that this is facing this awful diagnosis,” said Brenda. “Today and every day we are in awe of Sean. Seeing what he endured, watching him go through it with such bravery and strength, and an ability to smile through anything, we couldn’t be more proud of him.”

Click here for Sean's full story written by his mother, Brenda Ries.