Help Carson Bird

Here is an update to a story we told you about last night. Carson Bird had no complications during surgery last night. He is currently in ICU and will spend the next five to seven days in the hospital. He could possibly be released from ICU later on tonight.

Carson Bird is a former Air Force football player who has a rare form of cancer that attacks the cartilage in the body.

Carson first felt the leg pain while playing a flag football game, a game that was familiar to him being a collegiate All-American corner back while playing at the United States Air Force Academy. The doctors believed it was a dead femoral head that would require a full hip replacement. When the doctors opened up his hip they found something completely unexpected. In September of 2015, at the age of 31, Carson was diagnosed with Chondrosarcoma, a rare cancer that attacks the cartilage in the body. Not only had it attacked Carson’s hip, but had also metastasized to both of his lungs. Three weeks after they opened his hip, Carson went in for a bilateral lung surgery where they were able to remove some of the tumors.

After the surgeries, the overall prognosis was not encouraging. After many failed drug trials, 25 radiation treatments to shrink the tumor on his hip, and many painful, sleepless nights, Carson is still fighting. Just like he fought for the freedom of everyone in this nation (including deployments to Afghanistan and Qatar), he is fighting for his own freedom from cancer.

Carson recently got news that the tumor on his hip had substantially grown and was so heavy that it had fractured his femur. The only option the doctor gave was amputating his leg and a portion of his pelvis. The amputation is scheduled for Monday, June 20th. This will not cure Carson, but it will let the doctors focus solely on the tumors in his lungs.

Through all of this Carson has stayed positive. A man of God. A man who inspires people to appreciate what time they have on this earth and a man who watched his own mother lose her battle against cancer. He is determined to beat it.

Carson has not and cannot do it alone, he keeps his good spirit through the overwhelming support from his fianc Brittany.