Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
- Roman Groves, a 19-year-old from Bountiful, passed away Monday.
- Diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, his cancer spread despite treatments.
- He prioritized time with family and urged others not to take life for granted.
BOUNTIFUL — Lesli Groves should have been spending time preparing her 19-year-old son for his next stage of life, but instead spent the last few weeks preparing him for what doctors said would be the end of his life.
Roman Groves passed away Monday afternoon, sooner than anyone who knew him had hoped.
"He went so fast," Lesli Groves said.
The first sign of trouble came when her son was heading into his senior year at Bountiful High School, looking forward to his final high school football season as a star lineman on his team. In the summer of 2022, college scholarship offers were on the horizon for the 6-foot-1, 275-pound Redhawk, and the future was bright.
And then he started feeling chest pain.
"He was bulking up at that time, wanting to be on the line and be a starter for his senior year of football," Lesli Groves said. "I would give him a hard time and say, 'Well, did you bench 300 pounds today? And, 'Did the bar hit your chest?'"
Pain was par for the course as an athlete, and Roman Groves was accustomed to feeling it. This made it difficult for him and his parents to know whether it was serious.
"The pain was so random that even at his physical in June of 2022, for the next year, we totally forgot to bring it up," his mother said. "He was the starting center for Bountiful High School that year. There were days when he talked to the trainer (about the pain) and days when he needed to take a few extra ibuprofen, but it happened so infrequently. During the games, it usually didn't bother him because the adrenaline would keep him going and he wouldn't think about it."
In October that year, after Roman Groves had finished his last season game, his parents decided they had better get his chest pain checked out. Initially, doctors were looking externally. With no bones appearing to be broken, he was prescribed physical therapy. He moved forward with that for the next couple of months, but by January 2023, the pain worsened.
"On the day of the Rose Bowl, which was Jan. 2, my husband and I were both home and Roman was having an episode where the pain was really severe," Lesli Groves recalled. "We decided to take him to the ER at Lakeview (Hospital), thinking maybe they would just prescribe him some medication to help with the pain."
The doctors decided to take an X-ray and saw something they "shouldn't see." The next step was a CT scan, followed by a two-hour wait to see a specialist who revealed a mass behind his sternum. This all happened on a Monday, and by Wednesday, there was an MRI, and on Thursday, a biopsy to find out if the mass was cancerous.
"Doctors told Roman that if it was cancerous, then they would put a port in to access his blood system, and so he knew that if you woke up with a port that it was cancer," Lesli said. "When he woke up, the first thing Roman said was, 'Is the port in?'"
The port was in. It was cancer.
The ups and downs of cancer
Roman Groves was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, which is a rare, high-grade bone cancer that largely affects children and young adults. His cancer had already metastasized, meaning it had a higher likelihood of spreading.
He was immediately put on treatments, starting with an entire month of radiation. He continued treatments through September 2023, and he was told there was "no evidence of disease."
With that good news, Roman Groves got a job working at a furniture company, earning money to pay for college. He had also gained about 100 pounds during treatment. So he started eating healthy and exercising, and even coached his younger brother's Little League football team. He lost 80 pounds and earned about 30 college credits. He worked with autistic kids that same year. By October 2024, he had earned enough money to start classes at Western Governors University and had paid the enrollment fees.
Within a few days, however, he was re-diagnosed, as the cancer had spread to his hip.
"We learned really quickly that there are good cancers and bad cancers, and Ewing's sarcoma is a bad cancer," Lesli Groves said. "Only about 230 kids per year get diagnosed, and the most common is 15- to 19-year-old white males, which is exactly what Roman is."
Again, treatments immediately began, with several rounds of chemotherapy that weren't working. His cancer had become resistant to treatment.
Having hard conversations
Lesli Groves said that each round of chemotherapy lasted 21 days, which she said was really hard on her son. The cancer had spread to his shoulders, hips and knees, and he was in a lot of pain. She discussed one particularly difficult day when Roman Groves posed a question to his doctor, which yielded a heartbreaking answer.
"When Roman was re-diagnosed, he Googled what the chances of being alive in five years were if your cancer was metastatic when diagnosed and then comes back within a year. It was only 13%," Lesli Groves said. "He already knew he was at a place that wasn't good. So he had a tough conversation with his doctor, asking how long he had left."
The doctor's answer: 12 weeks.
That conversation with his doctor occurred during the second week in May, and Lesli Groves said that would have put him dying near the first of August.
"It's awful, and I'm so confused and lost about why this is happening to me," Roman Groves told KSL.com at the end of May. "But I guess you could say I'm really focused on prioritizing time with my family and my friends and the people I love while I'm still here and not taking life for granted while I still have it."
Accepting grief
Both Roman and Lesli Groves said they tried to hold onto their faith, but loss and extreme grief were things they lived with every single day.
"One of the things we say a lot is that we can have faith and have this still be stupid," she said. "We try our best to be real and to let everybody have their feelings in our house. We know that this is hard. It's hard for his siblings to understand what's going on, and I try to let them know that at any time this is too much, that they can step away for a minute and not be so involved with everything that's going on."
Lesli Groves knows about grief, having lost her dad tragically in a car accident when she was 18 years old. She said there is a large difference, however, between losing a loved one quickly and preparing for a loved one to die. She said preparing her son to accept death as a near reality has been heartbreaking.
"I think Roman has a lot of questions about why it's happening to him, and he has moments of being frustrated," she said. "But I remember a time when his football friends all came over when he was first diagnosed. I said, 'Roman, every single one of those boys would take your place,' and he said, 'Well, mom, if me having this means that none of them have to have it, then I'll take it.'
"I don't want people to feel bad for us," she continued. "Don't feel bad. Go home, hug your kids and don't take time with them for granted."
A GoFundMe* account has been set up to help Roman Groves and his family. Updates on his condition can be found on the fundraising page, as well as on Lesli Grove's Instagram page.
*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited into the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisors and otherwise proceed at your own risk.
