TOLEDO, Ohio — 2015 started like any other year for Chandler.
"I was a freshman in high school," he said. "The first part of the year went great. I was in cross country getting my 5K time down. Getting healthier, better, stronger."
But after the season ended, things started going downhill.
"One of the worst things was my back pain," he said. I could barely sit through school. I would be wiggling trying to get it under control. I would go home and lay on my back for hours until it finally went away."
Howard and his family would see doctors, specialists and physical therapists. They were trying just about anything and hoping to get some answers.
"It was a long month of really bad pain trying to figure it all out, I started to develop double vision," Chandler said.
An eye doctor was next on the list.
"From there, the eye doctor could see the swelling behind my eye. He said they were going to get me in with a neurologist," Howard said.
And then he saw another doctor, who saw the problem right away.
"He took a quick look and could immediately tell. He pulled my parents aside and told them it's definitely not nothing," Howard said.
This is the start of Chandler's story. He was rushed to a local hospital and received a diagnosis: "I had medulloblastoma. It's a brain cancer right in the back of the head," he said.
"I had two brain surgeries because when they opened me up it was swollen, there was blood in my cerebral spinal fluid and basically, the doctor didn't know what to do."
Doctors were able to remove most of the tumor but also found that it had metastasized down his spine.
He was told he had a 60-70% chance of survival.
"At that point, it was where to go from here?" he said. "There were still tumors down my spine, a little bit of tumor in my brain. Obviously, surgery doesn't get rid of all the cancer."
Chandler's specific type of cancer only has 500 diagnosed cases in the U.S. each year. So treatment led him right to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
"You walk in and you can just feel the happiness," Chandler said. "It's a happy, hopeful place where everybody is not just trying to get you better but also trying to make sure you live your best life as you get better."
His is a life that had a better chance of survival after meeting his oncologist.
"We came here and the first time we met Dr. Gajjar, he said 'we've got it' because he wrote the protocol for medulloblastoma," Chandler said.
A few months into treatment, Chandler's family decided to move to Memphis, Tenn.
"I had 30 rounds of radiation over a month and seven rounds of chemo over seven months. A few minor surgeries, g-tubes and ports placed in. After about a year of treatment, I was officially done," he said.
And Chandler has been done ever since.
"Three years ago, I hit the five-year mark of remission where the likelihood of a relapse goes down drastically," he said.
More recently, he was told he only had to see his doctor once a year.
Chandler is now 24 and his time at St. Jude also showed him what career he wanted to pursue.
"I've always been a science and math kind of person," he said. "Coming in and them doing all of this for me, saving my life, free of charge and doing such a wonderful job definitely pointed me toward the medical field."
He plans to take a bit of a different approach, though.
"I also love animals and decided to go down the veterinary path. So I'm currently working at a vet clinic and I'm about to apply for vet school," Chandler said.
His journey was possible, he says, because of the countless doctors and constant research at St. Jude.
"That's very much what St. Jude was for me," Chandler said. "We are giving you life, we are giving you an opportunity, we're going to give you security."
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