Little Liam Schlosser is overcoming cancer, but he’s getting strong with soccer. And he will tell you all about his favorite sport.
“You get to run around and challenge and control and dribble,” he explained.
What he won't really tell you is why he has difficulty balancing on his left leg, kicking with his left foot.
“In soccer you don't really notice it at all,” said Liam’s teammate Sophia King. “And he always stays happy so like you never really know.”
What you don’t know is that the 12-year-old has cancer.
“Most of the time I'm not really thinking about cancer,” Liam said. “But sometimes I get a little bit frustrated with it, but I can live an almost normal life that anybody else could.”
Five years ago, Liam was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor in his brain.
“I was diagnosed with a really bad type of cancer,” Liam recounted. “I can't remember the name but it was basically a death sentence so they said I had a few weeks to live.”
But a second opinion from St. Jude Children's Hospital revealed Liam has a fibrillary astrocytoma, a low-grade tumor in his brain stem.
“I have had no treatment,” Liam explained. “It's a watch and wait, so it hasn't grown but it's still there.”
But Liam isn’t scared.
“No, St. Jude has been so good and amazing that I have complete confidence with them and I am not worried at all anymore,” he said with confidence.
Instead Liam focuses on what he loves.
“My doctors were always saying you should do some exercises with your left side to create new pathways against the cancer,” he described. “So that definitely helped me with my left side because it's like kicking and running.”
“It's not a bad day when I go out there and I see Liam,” said Liam’s soccer coach Michael King with a smile. “He's out there working his tail off, and it just forces me to realize how lucky the vast majority of us are.”
Through it all, Liam has remained strong.
“For now, it's just like I take my medications every day and I'm fine,” he said.
Liam continues to kick cancer out of his life. He just got word a couple of months ago that he now only has to go in for an MRI once a year.
