Childhood Cancer Spotlight: Lincoln

At 16 years old, Lincoln was an active, athletic teenager and baseball player who was looking forward to his junior year. After experiencing intermittent sciatic pain, an MRI in August 2025 revealed a large pelvic mass. Within days, his pain became severe, and the tumor was found to be pressing against his sciatic nerve, causing loss of feeling and movement in his right foot.

On September 2, 2025, Lincoln underwent a biopsy and had a port placed. Two days later, he began chemotherapy while doctors continued working to identify the exact type of cancer. Two weeks later, the final pathology identified synovial sarcoma, a rare soft tissue cancer.

His treatment included 7 chemotherapy treatments, 25 proton therapy sessions, and 19 inpatient chemotherapy days. Proton therapy was used to target the deep pelvic tumor while limiting radiation exposure to surrounding healthy tissue.

After months of treatment, Lincoln underwent a 22-hour surgery on January 7, 2026 to remove the tumor. Because the tumor was wrapped around his sciatic nerve, a portion of the nerve had to be removed, leaving him with permanent foot drop and loss of sensation in his right foot. His final pathology showed more than 99% tumor necrosis and negative surgical margins, meaning almost all of the tumor had been destroyed by treatment and the tumor was removed with clear margins.

Lincoln completed his final chemotherapy at the end of January. On February 25, 2026, his first post-treatment scans showed No Evidence of Disease (NED), and he rang the cancer center bell to celebrate the end of active treatment.

Lincoln returned to school on March 2, still using crutches and working through the effects of surgery and nerve damage. He began intensive physical therapy and slowly rebuilt his strength and mobility. By the spring, he was walking without crutches, working on balance, hitting and throwing a baseball, and eventually winning his baseball team’s GRIT Award for his hard work and determination.

Today, Lincoln continues regular scans and long-term monitoring for the effects of chemotherapy and surgery. His biggest physical challenge remains his permanent foot drop. After trying four different AFOs, his family finally found an orthotist in Houston who is creating a custom PDE AFOdesigned around Lincoln’s goal of running and returning to baseball.

Lincoln’s journey has been about much more than surviving cancer. It has been about fighting to get his life back—his independence, his mobility, his baseball career, and his future.

He went from a 16-year-old athlete diagnosed with a rare cancer to a cancer survivor determined to get back on the baseball field.