Former Fairfield goalie Capalbo faces third bout with cancer

Charlie Capalbo plays Xbox online with his brother Will and his buddies, because that’s what you do when you’re a college kid. His girlfriend Peyton Siegel sits nearby with the support that means so much in a flourishing relationship. He watches hockey on TV with his dad, because, well, that’s what dads and sons do.

His mom Jenny is the forever rock.

Even as he ended five days of intense treatment, Charlie Capalbo had only one favor to ask Wednesday. To tag his Instagram account @ccapalbo_ (he’s looking to get at least 3,000 followers).

That’s because no matter what life deals him, the 22-year-old former goalie from Fairfield plans on being around an awfully long time. And after all we have seen, all we have witnessed, who among us can doubt him?

Charlie is back at Boston Children’s Hospital and as family friend John McCormick said on a GoFundMe page he started for the Capalbos, “We can’t sugarcoat this, the third battle is going to be the toughest.”

Charlie fought off cancer once. A tumor the size of a softball was found lodged between his heart and lung in 2017 as he was completing his high school hockey season at Fairfield Ludlowe.

He was diagnosed with T Lymphoblastic Lymphoma Stage 3. Charlie fought it with all he had. Thirty-six months of chemotherapy, extensive physical therapy, he never returned to high school, but he returned to the rest of his life.

Charlie fought off cancer twice. A month after he started at Fairfield University in October 2018, new cancer cells were found in his spinal fluid. This time it was leukemia. Chemo again. High-dose chemo. Jenny moved to Boston to be with her son, Anthony Capalbo driving up and back three times a week for months to be with his son. Again, he fought it with all he had. Charlie would need a bone marrow transplant.

A match was found. It was his brother.

Will had felt so helpless before, “and now there was this,” Anthony said of the full bone marrow transplant on Feb. 4, 2019.

Will saved Charlie’s life. There can be no closer bond between brothers.

Charlie’s fights with can

David Gunn photography Former Fairfield co-op goaltender Charlie Capalbo has been diagnosed with cancer for the third time.