Vermont high school student Cameron Rider underwent a left upper lobectomy on May 19 at the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute, where surgeons removed a mucoepidermoid carcinoma tumor from his lung. The removal of the entire tumor meant his cancer could be considered cured.

Rider, then 16, joined his school's football team the summer before his junior year, in addition to playing hockey and baseball. Pre-season football practices in August left him fatigued and out of breath. When his tiredness turned into a 105°F fever and body aches, his parents took him to a local emergency room, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia and treated with antibiotics. His symptoms returned, and he had multiple cycles of pneumonia diagnosis and antibiotic treatment over the next few months. In November, he was hospitalized with pneumonia. Steroid and antibiotic treatments did not prevent the pneumonia from recurring, and doctors recommended he see a specialist.

"I was being told that it was pneumonia, that it was just reoccurring constantly, and there might be a little bit of a blockage or something else that might be going on," Rider said.

He underwent a bronchoscopy, an exploratory procedure where a camera is inserted down the throat to study the lungs and airways. The procedure was scheduled to last 15 minutes but lasted two hours after doctors spotted a mass and removed part of it for testing. A few weeks later, doctors diagnosed him with mucoepidermoid carcinoma on his lung, a type of cancer that usually affects the salivary glands and produces slow-growing tumors typically treated first with surgery.

"My first thought was obviously if I was going to die or not. It was the first thing that popped in my head," he said.

He was referred to multiple facilities and chose the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute because of its surgical team, the shorter drive from his Vermont home, and a six- to eight-week recovery period, compared with 10 to 12 weeks elsewhere. "That might not be much time for somebody else, but when it comes to sports seasons and stuff like that, that two, three, four-week period is pretty big," he said.

Dr. Danielle Cameron, the surgical director for pediatric oncology at the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute, developed a plan to remove the entire tumor in a nearly eight-hour operation. Rider was discharged one week after surgery to continue his recovery at home in Vermont, and after a few months, doctors cleared him to resume athletic activities. He missed most of his baseball season but played soccer in the fall. "I was just thankful I would be able to return to sports for my senior year," he said.

Rider, now 19, is applying to colleges, working as a referee and continuing to play ice hockey. "He's had a perfect outcome. You couldn't ask for a more athletically accomplished patient after a lobectomy," Cameron said. "He will continue to undergo long-term surveillance and annual scans to ensure the cancer does not return," she added.

"Those basic things that we take for granted every day — I started to understand the importance of them and how lucky we are," Rider said.