VIDEO: The Kempner community is mourning the loss of volunteer firefighter James Braden Charles, who died last Wednesday after a seven-year battle with cancer. He was 22. His parents, Randa and Matt Charles, say Braden was diagnosed with osteosarcoma at age 15, after he started experiencing knee pain.
โThe nurse practitioner, they did an x-ray and he happened to have seen it before,โ Randa Charles recalled, โthey did a stat MRI for us for the next morning and within a week we knew he had osteosarcomaโ. Osteosarcoma is a bone cancer most often seen in children. After the diagnosis Braden immediately started treatment.
He went 11 months with no evidence of disease after the initial treatment, but sadly the cancer returned. โWe were doing his 12 month scan and it was back, and it was back in his lung,โ Randa Charles said.
Despite this Braden never stopped fighting, going through four different trials and having a total of 14 surgeries. โEvery time Braden would go โI want to keep fightingโ and weโd go โokโ. And even when the doctors would say โlook thereโs a quality of life involvedโ and he goes โkeep fightingโ,โ Matt Charles shared.
