Ethan Paladino "BIG E"

Until February 24, 2015, Ethan was a typical 11 year-old 5th grader. He played football,
piano and Minecraft, attended Sunday school, and was about to receive the Cub Scout Arrow of Light award.

He is loved for his kindness and compassion toward others, his giving nature and moral courage. Ethan is the kind of person we all wish we could be. His parents lovingly call him their “Baby Moose”, his football coaches called him the “Gentle Giant”, and his teammates simply called him “Big E”. To his family Ethan has always been a little miracle, but today Ethan is very unique to everyone else as well because he has a very unique disease.

Ethan’s world came crashing down in February when the possible concussion from a rowdy snowball fight turned out instead to be a 2.6 cm mass in the center of his head. Ethan spent a week in the PICU at the University of Virginia’s Children’s Hospital during which time he had a shunt installed to relieve pressure and underwent a biopsy. The biopsy revealed that the mass is what is known as DIPG, Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma. A portion of the tumor is a Stage IV glioblastoma. Because of the tumor’s location on the brain stem, which performs nervous system functions central to life, surgery is not possible. Ethan’s doctors referred him to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis and he arrived with Mom and Dad on March 15th 2015.

We are sorry to say on May 21, 2016; Ethan has lost his battle with DIPG. Our hearts are with his family during this hard time..

Ethan will always on the field with us.