Julian Fraser‘s family wanted to spread awareness after his passing and so they biked 5,000 miles across the country to do just that.
The 20-year-old’s life was taken from osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.
“He would be thrilled that we’re just trying to continue his legacy, and turn it into a message of hope,” Cristy Fraser shared with Erin McLaughlin this past Friday.
The cross-country trek started in August with Alec Fraser and good friend Jamie Meehan cycling from the family’s home in Connecticut with Cristy following in a support van.
And since then, their trip has since raised nearly $500,000 for Cycle for Survival, an organization that supports research and clinical trials led by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City — the spot where Julian Fraser was treated. In addition, they will also arrive in Santa Clara in time for the annual Julian Fraser Memorial Tournament involving the men’s water polo team this weekend.
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“It’s an incredible ending to a wonderful journey across the country, and we’re so excited to finish in Santa Clara, which has been a loving, wonderful place for Julian and for us,” Cristy said.
Julian was a sophomore water polo player at Santa Clara University when he began to develop a searing pain in his pelvis. The former high school swimmer and water polo player was then diagnosed with rare cancer known as osteosarcoma.
“We were hopeful at first that maybe it was isolated, a tumor that could be removed,” Cristy said. “But when we got the prognosis, the cancer had metastasized throughout his body.”
“They told him that he had less than a 1% chance of surviving this,” Alec said. “But he said, ‘I don’t care what they say. I’m gonna beat this. I’m gonna fight this with all my strength.'”
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“We thought, ‘He has a chance to beat this,’ but you can’t beat that kind of cancer,” his mother said. “Basically, they told him he had 10 months to live. And that, in fact, was what he had.”
“We really wanted to do something big to honor Julian,” Alec said.
“We’ve built this great community and we have this Team Julian that’s raising close to $2 million,” Julian’s brother, Andrew Fraser, said on TODAY
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