By Lily Abromeit

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Saturday will be a big day for Parker Kress.

When Parker, this week’s Kid Captain, walks onto the field at Kinnick Stadium, he’ll celebrate more than being a Captain — he’ll also be celebrating his 15th birthday.

“We’re never going to be able to top this birthday,” said Kristin Dumser, Parker’s mother.

Dumser said they didn’t know Parker would be the Captain for the Iowa-Iowa State game, but it worked out perfectly.

In December 2014, Parker started experiencing pain in his ankle and noticed swelling in his calf. After numerous tests, Parker was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of childhood bone cancer.

Since then, Parker’s journey has had its ups and downs. Following numerous months of chemotherapy, swelling started again. This time, there was an infection in his leg. The surgery that followed did not clear out the infection, so this October, Parker will undergo a procedure called a rotationplasty. As part of the procedure, a portion of Parker’s leg will be removed and his foot will be rotated 180 degrees, making his heel and ankle the weight bearing knee joint.

Following the rare surgery, Parker will get a prosthetic leg.

Throughout all of this, the people who were around Parker the most, his nurses and doctors, say he was uncommonly positive.

“He never got down,” said Mary Schlapkohl, a nurse practitioner in pediatric oncology at the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital. “Some teens will get very frustrated and lash out, as you would expect them to, and he never did that.

“He just very quietly strapped up his boots and knew what he had to do to get through this and never lost sight of that.”

Schlapkohl said she thinks Parker embodies the spirit of the Kid Captain program.

“I think he’s an excellent role model with children who are faced with a life-threatening illness and the ability to maintain his optimism and his courage, even though we were striking him down with all sorts of nasty poisons and chemotherapy,” she said. “To me, he is courage, resilience, and strength all wrapped up in an incredible package, and for him to articulate it in such a mature way, it really sets the bar high.”

Setting the bar high and being a role model is something Ben Miller, an orthopedic oncologist at the Children’s Hospital, said he also remembers about Parker during his treatments.

“The thing that strikes me about Parker is his maturity going through all this,” Miller said. “There were a couple times where his eyes would get a little wide, and you could tell he knew the gravity of the situation … and I’m sure some of these decisions were scary and they were hard … but whenever I was talking with Parker, I got a sense he knew what was going on, and he was ready for anything. And the process, I’m sure, was scary, but he didn’t show it.”

Parker is in a different part of his treatment now, one in which Miller says he can start thinking about the rest of his life.

“That’s a really nice transition to see,” he said.

For Parker, this means thinking about athletics — specifically finding a way to make it to the Paralympics.

“Ever since about fourth grade, I’ve always wanted to be a professional athlete, and [after I learned after my surgery] that I couldn’t do it I was bummed, but there are other things I can do,” he said.

Pat Angerer, a former Iowa football player and linebacker in the NFL, lives near Parker in Bettendorf and is one of the people who have supported this dream of Parker’s, encouraging him to “go for Paralympic gold.”

Angerer isn’t the only football player to be by Parker’s side. Current Iowa players Parker Hesse and Brandon Snyder also visited Parker in the hospital. 

When Parker found out he was a Kid Captain, he told his mother he was excited because the student-athletes always used to come to the hospital to cheer him on and now he gets to cheer them on on the field.

This idea of cheering on and uplifting others is the piece of advice Parker wants to give.

“Sometimes, people try to cheer me up, but I feel like it’s my job to cheer them up,” he said. “I learned to always surround yourself with positivity.”