Belvidere, ILL. — Michael Perez has been running with a football for as long as he can remember. However, he received a medical diagnosis that threatened to cut his career short. In July of 2024, he was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, Ewing Sarcoma.

"It was kind of a shock," Susanna Aguirre, Micheal's mother said. "We never had a case of cancer in our family so it was just wondering how did it happen and where did it come from."

Due Michael and his family had to travel to a specialty hospital in Madison, WI to undergo an extensive surgery to remove a baseball sized tumor, along with consistent chemotherapy according to Aguirre. The chemotherapy would keep Michael out of school for a majority of his sophomore year at Belvidere high school.

Throughout Michael's battle, he says

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