A year ago, Andrew Vickers, then 15, was a member of the Wiesbaden High School track team. Today, Andrew is battling lymphoma, and he is scheduled to have a bone marrow transplant Friday at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. (Courtesy of Carl Vickers)
A year ago, Andrew Vickers, then 15, was a member of the Wiesbaden High School track team. Today, Andrew is battling lymphoma, and he is scheduled to have a bone marrow transplant Friday at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. (Courtesy of Carl Vickers)
Chelsea Caruso, left, and Kristina Coleman, both juniors at Wiesbaden High School in Germany, show off their Team Vickers shirts during a rally Wednesday in the school’s lobby. (Ben Bloker / S&S)
Students at Wiesbaden High School in Germany rally together to receive an update on Andrew Vicker’s cancer treatment from teacher Sue Krummrei last week in the school’s lobby. (Ben Bloker / S&S)
WIESBADEN, Germany — A year ago, Wiesbaden High School student Andrew Vickers was prepping for the upcoming track and field season.
Today, the 16-year-old is traveling a different course, one with hurdles and curves not found at any track meet. The high school junior will undergo a bone marrow transplant Friday as part of his battle against a rare and severe form of lymphoma he has fought since school started. The cancer is now in remission, according to doctors.
“He’s motivated,” said Andrew’s father, Master Sgt. Carl Vickers, an Army medical specialist. “He’s ready to move forward with the transplant.”
Although the Vickers family has had to relocate to the States, teachers and students at Wiesbaden haven’t forgotten Andrew. They have formed a support group called Team Vickers, cheering Andrew on from afar as he strives to overtake a disease none of them had in their sights a year ago.
“There is power in coming together as a group and wishing somebody well,” said Sue Krummrei, one of Andrew’s former teachers at Wiesbaden. “Some of them (students) don’t even know him.”
Students and teachers, more than 60 in all, came to school one day last week sporting bright T-shirts. Emblazoned across the front of the shirts in red lettering were the words “Team Vickers” and “hope and courage.”
In a show of solidarity, they gathered for a few minutes around noon. Krummrei said a few words and there was a moment of reflection. And it was somewhat lighthearted, which is just the way Andrew would want it.
“He’s got a real dry wit about him,” Krummrei said. “He’s a sweet, quiet young man.”
Andrew is practical, too. When he began to lose his hair in the early stages of chemotherapy treatment, he decided to get his hair cut, though not before having some fun.
“We shaved it all off,” Andrew said in an e-mail to Krummrei. “I actually had a Mohawk for a couple of minutes, and a lot of other weird hair patterns.”
Another rally at school is planned for Friday, when Andrew undergoes a bone marrow transplant at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The procedure, which helps restore damaged stem cells, is necessary because of his heavy chemotherapy regimen.
Andrew has come a long way since August, when he was diagnosed with lymphoma. Early tests and examinations at Walter Reed Army Medical Center found that he had an enlarged spleen, which had to be removed. For a time, the spleen had adversely affected his heart, though that has now dissipated.
Additionally, doctors originally thought Andrew had a cancerous mass growing in his brain, and that it was inoperable. The mass is still there but doctors have since determined that is not of a cancerous nature, according to Carl Vickers.
Andrew finished last year on a high note when his relay team finished fifth in the 3,200-meter relay at the Department of Defense Dependents Schools-Europe track and field championships. He and his legion of supporters on both sides of the Atlantic are hoping for an even stronger finish in this match against a deadly disease.
“We don’t know what the purpose is yet,” Carl Vickers said of his son’s battle with cancer. “We continue to ask ourselves that question.”
