Campo Verde community rallying around Brylee Freeman

Sep. 13—Brylee Freeman was an active 9-year-old who loved being outside, spending time with her friends and family and most importantly, watching her dad, Ryan Freeman, coach the Campo Verde Coyotes football team.

It became normal to see her at off-season workouts with the team, doing field work or her own version of the weightlifting workout for the day. She told her dad she aspired to be like Brooklyn Montgomery, a discus thrower for Campo Verde. So, in January, Freeman set out to begin teaching Brylee how to throw.

During the workout she began to experience hip pain. Ice and rest seemed to help. But that was the first sign of what was to come.

"She was doing some movements and stretching in a way that wasn't normal," Freeman said. "So, we iced it, and it would go away."

Brylee's hip pain came back on several occasions. Each time, rest seemed to help.

Freeman and his wife, Brittney, sought a doctor's opinion on the pain Brylee was feeling. Growing pains were the initial thought, or a fracture of some kind. Tests revealed nothing out of the ordinary at first, but when Brylee was unable to walk in June after a camping trip due to the unbearable pain, Freeman and Brittney pushed for more tests.

Doctors performed an X-ray and MRI. It revealed a mass on Brylee's hip. The Thursday before Father's Day she was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma.

"My wife just broke," Freeman said as tears began to fill his eyes. "It was Father's Day weekend and we asked what she wanted to do because I was supposed to be at NAU for a 7s tournament. She told us she just wanted to have a good weekend with her family. 'I just want to be a kid.'"

Ewing sarcoma is a rare form of cancer that occurs in bones or the soft tissue around bones.

Brylee began chemotherapy treatments the first week of July. She's continued treatment in intervals of two weeks. The first of the two she has a three-day hospital stay receiving round-the-clock treatment. She is then able to return home before going back for the longest stint of the two weeks — Tuesday to Sunday.

The diagnosis has changed how both Freeman and Brittney go about their everyday lives. They still have a younger son to care for, taking him to school and his afternoon baseball practices and games. But any other free time they have is spent with Brylee.

Freeman said he stays at the hospital most nights with her. His days often begin at 3:30 a.m., when he drives from the hospital to Campo Verde to prepare for a full day of teaching and coaching. When he's finished, he's back at the hospital.

Sleep has become the least of his worries these days. He sets an alarm for every hour to wake up and make sure Brylee is doing OK. The reason for this brings him to tears.

"I had fallen asleep, and she got trapped in the bathroom, so I woke up to her crying," Freeman said. "Ever since then, when I'm in the hospital, sleep for maybe an hour or hour-and-a-half straight just to make sure ... just to make sure she doesn't get trapped."

Since beginning chemotherapy, tests have showed some positive improvements. The cancer, at this point, doesn't appear to have spread beyond her hip.

In October, Brylee will undergo a procedure to remove the mass if possible. If doctors are unable to remove it, they'll take her entire hip and replace it with a metal rod. Freeman said that would require future surgeries as she grows to make sure she adjusts well to the foreign object in her body.

But either outcome would give her upwards of an 80 percent chance of survival with 18 more weeks of chemo after. If tests reveal the cancer has spread, the percentage drops.

Throughout being picked and prodded, Brylee has remained strong. Perhaps the strongest in her family.

There was a point in which Freeman considered walking away from coaching this year to focus on her and her health. But she was the one who told him he should continue. He took it up with Campo Verde parents before the season. His goal was to not be a distraction to the team. The parents backed him and said they wanted him to continue leading the team.

His players felt the same way.

"Him being here is confidence for our players and security," senior linebacker Gavin Silene said. "(Everything we do) is for her. It sucks she's that young going through that. Nobody should have to. It's for her."

Brylee's treatments make her unable to be around too many people in close contact due to the risk of illness.

Freeman doesn't believe she'll be able to return to school in-person this year. She also had to have special accommodations to attend Campo Verde's game against Millennium last Friday. But that was easy for everyone involved with the Campo Verde program to do.

Brylee was all smiles.

She continues to fight and motivate the rest of her family during a tough time. Her inspirational story, shared by many within the Campo Verde community, helped the Freeman's become one of the honorary families for the Team Emery Classic, a baseball tournament taking place Sept. 14-17 at Tempe Diablo Stadium that raises funds to donate to families of kids battling an illness.

Not only has she been strong for them, but she's also been strong for herself as she aims to achieve goals she set for herself when she was first diagnosed.

Freeman asked her shortly after the news this past summer if she could do anything what it would be. Brylee told him she wanted to swim with dolphins in Hawaii. She's been putting away small amounts of money ever since.

She feels if she can raise $600, her and her family will be able to get to Hawaii and make her dream come true.

"Yep," Freeman said, recalling the conversation with Brylee. "You raise it we'll get there."

A GoFundMe has been set up to assist the Freemans during Brylee's battle with cancer. To donate, visit https://gofund.me/692670f8.

#BraveLikeBrylee

Have an interesting story? Contact Zach Alvira at (480)898-5630 or zalvira@timespublications.com. Follow him on Twitter @ZachAlvira.