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Family fighting son’s cancer every way they can

Jeff Dempsey, The Park Record
Parents Teddy Sternagel, left, and Ryan Sternagel, right, pose with their son, Ryder, 3, outside their Park City home. Ryder was diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma when he was just 1 year old. (Jake Shane/Park Record)
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Two years ago, Ryder Sternagel was just like any other happy, healthy 1-year-old child. True, his development seemed to have slowed down. He wasn’t progressing toward walking at the pace his parents expected, but as father Ryan said, that was nothing to worry about.

"They always tell you, kids develop at their own pace," he said.

It wasn’t until one day almost exactly two years ago when the Sternagels were living in Washington, that mother Teddy noticed something was wrong.

"I was nursing him," she said. "And I felt a lump on his back. We didn’t know what it was but obviously we knew it shouldn’t be there. We called his doctor. We talked to several different doctors, and they all said not to worry, to check in again in six weeks."

The Sternagels had no interest in waiting. Ryder’s slow development now seemed like a symptom of something bigger. They found an orthopedic physician who was willing to do an ultrasound, and Teddy Sternagel told the doctor she thought Ryder might have a cancer called neuroblastoma.

"The physician basically said, ‘no way, only 600 kids a year get diagnosed with it,’" Teddy Sternagel said. "But they did an ultrasound of Ryder’s stomach and that’s when they found the tumors."

The Sternagels went in for an MRI a few days later, a procedure they were told would take about 45 minutes. When two hours had passed, Teddy Sternagel said she knew something was wrong.

"The doctor and the nurse came out to meet us and they were both crying," she said. "They told us to get over to Seattle Children’s Hospital immediately, that Ryder needed to start on chemotherapy right away," she said. "The lump on his back we felt? They called it ‘the tip of the iceberg.’ It was a tumor on his spinal cord. There were two others in his stomach which mad metastasized into his hip bones, too."

Doctors at Seattle Children’s made the diagnosis official: Ryder had Stage IV Neuroblastoma.

"The tumor in his spine explained why he wasn’t crawling, why he was barely moving around, at a year old," Ryan Sternagel said. "It was a tumor bigger than his kidney and it was inside his spinal canal. When you looked at his MRI, you couldn’t even see his spine there."

The Sternagels were in-patient at Seattle Children’s for a month while Ryder was undergoing chemotherapy, and during that time they were looking for the best possible place to nurse their son back to health. After looking around, they settled on Park City as the best healing environment. Ryan Sternagel said they wanted a place that was near a good medical facility (in this case, Primary Children’s Medical Center) but would also allow them to be in nature.

"We made the trip here in between rounds of chemotherapy," Teddy Sternagel said. "It was kind of a crazy trip but Ryder didn’t get sick at all."

Alternative methods

The Sternagels attribute Ryder’s success so far — two of the tumors are gone, with only one near his spine remaining — to the work they did in addition to his primary care. It started when he was first being treated in Seattle, with a focus on nutrition.

"We brought a juicer in our room, and we did a ton of supplements, too," Teddy Sternagel said. "I would walk in there with pounds of carrots at a time, and the nurses would tell me they’d never seen any family do this before."

Teddy Sternagel said they wanted to get as much nutrition into Ryder as possible, to put him in the best position to deal with the chemotherapy.

"He never lost weight during the process," she said. "In fact, he gained weight. He looked amazing. He lost his hair but other than that, we would tell people what was going on when they asked about the feeding tube and they were shocked, because he looked so good."

The Sternagels’ interest in alternative treatments grew from there, and they now have several devices in their home — an alkaline water machine, an infrared sauna, a Tesla wave machine.

"He gets in the sauna with Ryan for 30 minutes every night, basically to induce hyperthermia, because the idea is that healthy cells can stand the heat and unhealthy ones can’t. It’s why your body induces a fever when you get sick," Teddy Sternagel said. "And the water machine, the theory is that cancer thrives in an acidic environment so you want your body as alkaline as possible."

Teddy Sternagel said she understands there is skepticism around some of these alternative treatments. She has met many people who have asked her why she and Ryan embrace them. Her argument, first, is that whatever you think about the devices the family uses, there is nothing strange about good nutrition.

"In conventional medicine they just don’t focus on nutrition at all, so in our minds, at the very least we can have a healthy child while his treatment is happening," she said. "He doesn’t have to look like he’s withering away. And there were things we didn’t have to do because of that. There’s this injection they give kids to boost their white cell count and he never had to do that."

The "gadgets," as the Sternagels call them, are a hard sell for some people. Ryan Sternagel said the family feels strongly about their merit, and everything they are doing is being done in conjunction with what Ryder’s primary physicians are recommending.

"We consult with Ryder’s doctor, we do the MRIs and the diagnostics and talk about what we are doing," Ryan Sternagel said. "We talk to him about what he would recommend, and at the moment, he wouldn’t even be recommending anything. He wouldn’t even be prescribing chemo right now."

Ryder’s remaining tumor had been steadily shrinking until two check-ups ago in December, when progress appeared to have stopped. At his most recent check-up in March, the radiologist confirmed the tumor was getting bulkier. But Ryder’s doctor is not yet recommending chemotherapy.

"So it’s a ‘wait and see’ kind of situation," Teddy Sternagel said. "And we’re not waiting."

The Sternagels have a straight-forward view — they can either do nothing for the three months between Ryder’s check-ups, or they can embrace alternative treatments and good nutrition in the hope those things will make a difference.

"We encounter skeptics, sure, but this is what I say to them," Teddy Sternagel said. "There is all this research out there, all these tools, and they aren’t hurting Ryder. He’s one of the healthiest looking 3-year-olds around. Wouldn’t you do the same for your child?"

The Sternagel family maintains a website documenting their journey at http://www.MyKidCuresCancer.com .

Park City


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