Pa. man’s song honors friend battling brain cancer

Murrysville teen has family and high school friends rallying for him

High school friends piled into the living room of the Purdue home late last month to watch Super Bowl LVII, a nail-biter between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.

But the excitement was different for 19-year-old Chase Williams, whose best friend is battling a rare form of brain cancer.

“Watching the game, everyone had the realization that this could be his last Super Bowl,” he said.

Williams was so inspired by that feeling that he went home and wrote his first song, “Oh Brother,” an ode to his childhood friend, Joe Purdue. He later sang it to him while playing a guitar in his friend’s living room, an emotional moment captured on video and posted on Facebook by a tearful Lisa Purdue, Joe’s mother.

Joe Purdue, 19, of Murrysville, just outside Pittsburgh, has diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a pediatric brain cancer, and is undergoing cancer treatments at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. There are only 200-300 cases of DIPG diagnosed annually, with a survival rate of less than a year for most patients, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Friends from Franklin Regional Senior High School, where Joe Purdue played center on the football team and graduated last year, have rallied around him. He has difficulty walking, talking and swallowing but not with cognitive functions, according to his mother.

“It’s very sad what this ugly disease has done to our son,” she said.

But Lisa Purdue sees beauty in the friendship between Joe and Chase, whose song begins this way:

“Oh brother have we come this far / I guess life can be just so bizarre “From playing all of our little games / To brother, can you say my name?“

The video of Williams singing “Oh Brother” to his friend has garnered almost 16,000 views on Facebook since it was posted Feb. 26. It’s now also on YouTube.

News of Purdue’s diagnosis also reached Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett, who made his own video wishing Purdue well: “We are all thinking about you and praying for you, man. Hope you feel better soon. Go Steelers!” he says.

Purdue actually met Pickett, who played for the University of Pittsburgh, when he was in Shadyside last summer and asked to take a photo with the football star. Pickett obliged and when he learned later about the young man’s diagnosis, he sent the video message.

Joe Purdue has played football since he was 4 years old, said his father, J.B. Purdue. Weighing about 200 pounds when he played center for the Franklin Regional Panthers, he sometimes had to block defensive linemen weighing more than 300 pounds.

“Joe never gave up against other teams and opponents,” his father said. “He always gave 110%. The linemen looked up to him.”

During last year’s sports banquet, Purdue received the Mike Smith Award for his strength and consistency. He had plans to attend Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the fall.

But last summer, he told his parents he was feeling lightheaded and dizzy “like getting off a Kennywood ride,” his mother said. He was diagnosed with DPIG in late July at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

When Purdue told his best friend about his cancer diagnosis, Williams was devastated. He immediately visited him in the hospital and spent the day with him. Williams has continued to visit regularly, as have many other friends and family members. A dozen or so come often to reminisce, tell stories and talk about football.

“It means the world to him that he’s getting so much support,” Lisa Purdue said. “No one wants to be alone on this journey.”

The young visitors “aren’t nervous or afraid to see Joe in such a condition,” she added. “They don’t hide, they don’t ignore him. They stand by and support him and try to make him happy.”

Williams set up a GoFundMe campaign to help with his friend’s medical and other expenses on July 31. Its initial goal was $20,000 but it has raised more than $60,000.

The two have been friends since they were 11 or 12 years old, playing dek hockey and Xbox, watching television and vacationing together in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Williams, a freshman at Pitt, lives in Oakland but frequently comes home to hang out with his friend.

“My goal is to take a couple of hours to spend with him, take away the pain and give him some relief,” he said. “I just want to make him smile and make him forget about the present moment.”

Williams said he wrote “Oh Brother” in an hour or two at home after the Super Bowl. He played it first at the Purdues’ house. “I just kind of winged it and hoped it would sound OK for Joe.”

Lisa Purdue videoed the moment, trying not to break down in tears, and posted it on her Facebook page. “Every time I listen to it, I cry,” she said.

“I was blown away, not just by the fact he wrote the song, but his voice was good and he tuned up a 40-year-old guitar and made it sound great. The lyrics were so heartfelt.”

When asked how he feels about the song and his friends’ visits, Joe Purdue pointed to his face and smiled, his mother said.

In addition to helping her son, she wants to shine a light on pediatric cancers, specifically DPIG.

On average, there are two to three cases a year in the Pittsburgh area, said Dr. James Felker, assistant professor of pediatric neuro-oncology at UPMC Children’s Hospital.

“It’s a devastating diagnosis with an almost universal fatality rate,” he said.

The rarity of the cancer makes fighting it more difficult because there is little federal research funding for the study of rare pediatric diseases, according to the website of Children’s National Hospital, which specializes in treating DIPG.

Felker said pediatric cancers receive just a small fraction of cancer research funding.

“The need for funding for innovative research is huge,” said Felker, who shaved his head earlier this month to raise money for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which supports pediatric cancer research.

The Purdue family is directing donations to the Storm the Heavens Fund (stormtheheavens.org), which was set up by a Philadelphia mother specifically for research on this form of cancer.

It was hard at first for Lisa Purdue to grasp that her son had brain cancer. He wasn’t vulnerable to the disease from heredity or the environment, she said.

“People need to be aware that this disease is out there.”