Canton man ‘crusades for a cure’ at brain tumor walk

It may not seem it at first glance, but Ryan Carpenter of Canton is a very lucky man.

Diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor at the age of 31, Carpenter not only survived his terrifying ordeal and is alive and well some 19 months later; he also realizes now how much worse it all could have been.

Ryan and Cheryl Carpenter

“I’m telling you, I feel so lucky,” said the 1999 CHS graduate in a recent telephone interview. “I was at the hospital all the time, and I saw what [other patients] had to go through. It broke my heart to see so many people having such a tougher time than me.”

Whereas many patients with a brain tumor experience debilitating symptoms and setbacks, Carpenter was able to power through his treatment, continuing to work full-time as a marketing consultant and maintaining at least an outward show of strength and confidence.

Along the way, he endured multiple brain surgeries, 42 days of radiation, and a full year of chemotherapy that left him nauseous and tired much of the time. Yet he also found the time and the energy to give back to others, volunteering for the National Brain Tumor Society and ultimately putting together a team of fundraisers for last year’s Boston Brain Tumor Walk.

Today, Carpenter is cancer-free and a member of the committee that organizes the walk, and this Sunday, October 6, he will return to Carson Beach to lead “Carpenter’s Crusaders for a Cure,” a team of about 40 family members and friends whose goal is to raise $2,500 in support of brain tumor awareness, research, and, ultimately, a cure.

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Carpenter’s medical journey began in February of 2012, although the date that will be forever seared in his memory is March 2.

That was the day that an MRI revealed a lesion on his brain — a terrifying discovery that would lead to an eventual diagnosis of grade 4 glioblastoma, the most common and most aggressive primary brain tumor in humans.

On that same day, before Carpenter could even process the news about the tumor, he also learned that his baby sister, Alexandra, a Canton High School sophomore, had been injured in a head-on collision on York Street along with five of her friends and was clinging to life in a Boston hospital. Her injuries were so severe that a portion of her skull had to be removed just to relieve the massive swelling in her brain.

The procedure, a craniotomy, would later become familiar to Carpenter as he experienced one himself for different reasons in May of that same year. However, on that fateful March night and in the days and weeks that followed, all Carpenter could think about was his sister and whether or not she would make it through.

“I was far more concerned for her; that’s really all that mattered,” he said. “It didn’t look good for a long, long time.”

Carpenter said he visited Alexandra almost daily, and for a while, he rarely thought about his own medical issues. In fact, he didn’t even tell his family, aside from his wife, Cheryl, until several weeks after the diagnosis.

Later, when Alexandra regained consciousness and then slowly began to recover, Carpenter opened up about some of his own experiences, all the while stressing that he was “going to be fine.”

“I think it helped us both, and we could both talk about what we were going through,” he said. “But I was always positive. I didn’t want her to worry about me. I mean, I’m her big brother — that’s kind of a natural big brother thing.”

And for the most part, he genuinely believed that he was going to be okay, encouraged by reports that his tumor was not only shrinking, but beginning to show signs of being more benign.

“I was really lucky because I caught it so early,” said Carpenter, who initially thought that he had an eye problem after waking up one morning with double vision.

Even his chemotherapy treatments, although tedious and draining, were manageable, and he was fortunate to keep most of his hair, aside from a few “light spots” that he noticed from time to time.

As for his decision to continue working, Carpenter said it was a personal one that worked for him and was all part of his grander plan to stay positive and beat the disease.

“I needed to go,” he said. “For me personally, I needed to wake up every day and go kick this tumor’s ass. I needed to go to work and to try to live as normally as I could.”

It wasn’t always easy, of course. Carpenter endured regular bouts of nausea and fatigue, and the past few months of treatment were especially tough — more so psychologically than physically, he said.

Yet even in the darkest times, Carpenter stayed positive and grateful, buoyed by the support of his family and friends, especially Cheryl.

“She was the one person I could tell my fears to,” he said of his wife. “Man, she was strong, unbelievably so. She never gave a doubt for a moment, at least to me.”

Carpenter said he also received lots of support from his employer as well as from the National Brain Tumor Society.

“Again, I was real lucky, and that’s part of the reason I’m doing this with the Brain Tumor Society,” he said. “Being young and having caught it early, I handled this very well.”

And now that he has his health back, Carpenter feels it is his duty to “help the cause” in whatever way he can, whether it’s stuffing envelopes or participating in this weekend’s walk.

“It was natural for me to want to do something more and to help others with this disease,” he said. “It’s not a large majority of us, but this is a tough, tough disease. It’s not often that you’re in my situation and come out where I am now.”

“I’m one of the lucky ones; I can’t say it enough,” added Carpenter. “I’m healthy now. It’s probably too early to say I’m in remission, but if it ever does come back, I’m just going to beat it again.”

For more information on the Brain Tumor Walk, go to www.braintumorcommunity.org, or click here to donate on behalf of Ryan Carpenter and his team.

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