Meet Jack, a two-time Hockey Fights Cancer puck dropper

Jack Langdon rings the Victory Bell after finishing treatment.

When Jack Langdon was diagnosed with spindle cell sarcoma in August 2023, he took the news in stride.

At 26, it was his second cancer diagnosis: When he was 12, he was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma and was treated at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“There was a lot of pain in my heel whenever I was walking because it’s a form of bone cancer,” Jack says of his first diagnosis. “It just progressively got worse. When I finally had my MRI done, we discovered a tumor that had spread to my knee and hip.”

Pediatric patient Jack Langdon smiles before dropping the ceremonial puck at Hockey Fights Cancer night, age 12.
Jack, 12 years old, before dropping the ceremonial puck at his first Hockey Fights Cancer game in 2011.

After nine months of treatment, which included chemotherapy, radiation and a surgery to remove the primary tumor, Jack was declared cancer-free. He was also asked to be the ceremonial puck dropper when the Buffalo Sabres hosted their Hockey Fights Cancer night, a big deal to a lifelong Sabres fan.

After the puck-dropping honor, Jack resumed his normal life as a teenager who dutifully attended his follow-up appointments at Roswell Park for 10 years.  Then, a year ago, the pain returned.

“I started noticing pain in my knee, but I work in a physical labor job. I’m a plumber and do a lot of heavy lifting, so I chalked it up to nothing more than just soreness from working hard," he says. “But as it got worse and worse, I had to get some X-rays.”

Despite his normal check-up a few months earlier, Jack called Roswell Park and worked with Denise Rokitka, MD, MPH, Director of Pediatric and Adolescent Cancer Survivorship and the Director of the Young Adult Program.

When Dr. Rokitka confirmed his suspicions that he had cancer a second time, Jack didn’t panic. “It’s hard-hitting on anyone. I had just gotten married, we got our first house and there was a lot going on, but I didn’t lose my head about it. I did this once; I can do it again.”

Due to his age and previous cancer treatment, Jack receives his care in the Roswell Park’s Pediatric department. This means he sits side-by-side with children for his chemotherapy. It also means he was cared for by some of the same nurses he saw during his initial treatment more than 10 years ago.

A rare cancer linked to radiation treatment 

Spindle cell sarcoma is a rare cancer and one that is linked with previous radiation treatment, according to Dr. Rokitka. The treatment that saved his life earlier when fighting Ewing sarcoma involved radiation up to his knee. "This cancer, his most recent one, is a result of that radiation,” she says.

Jack’s cancer this time around is not metastatic and was caught early in part because he remembered the pain he felt during his first journey with cancer. Incidents of secondary cancers in people who had previous cancer treatment tend to occur around 10 years or more after their first diagnosis. Treatment for this second diagnosis has meant making some slight modifications from his first therapy, since Dr. Rokitka and the rest of Jack’s team wanted to limit his exposure to medications that might put undue stress on his heart.

“A lot of times, our patients with recurrent or secondary sarcomas tend to get very similar drugs again for treatment. With Jack, we had to be careful about whether his heart would tolerate the additional strain,” Dr. Rokitka says.  “We ended up doing a staged approach where he received typical therapy for his type of spindle cell sarcoma with doxorubicin, and then once he had surgery to remove the tumor, we decided to switch over to a regimen not containing doxorubicin, which is not typical for this type of cancer. You don’t want to risk cure but given his outcome in the localized disease, we obviously wanted to take into account the potential long-term effects on his body and, more specifically, his heart.”

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Taking to the ice again

By April 1, 2024, Jack was given a clean bill of health with no evidence of disease.  But he did need surgery to replace his knee and part of his femur affected by treatment for the second round of cancer. “The bottom half of my femur to the top half of my tibia are all titanium in place of the bone,” he says, adding that he’ll likely set off the metal detectors at KeyBank Center on November 1, when he’ll once again drop the puck to start the Sabres’ Hockey Fights Cancer game against the New York Islanders.

“I’ve already gone to a Bills game and set off the security,” Jack laughs. “As soon as I walk in, I let them know I have titanium in my knee."

He has had to do some adjusting as he recovers from surgery. “Jack’s still working hard with physical therapy to get back to his career as a plumber. His job puts a lot of physical stress on his knees and legs and that’s hard for him since his surgery. But he’s amazing. He takes everything in stride with a positive attitude knowing that he’s going to be OK and that he and his wife will figure everything out. He’s been like that all along,” Dr. Rokitka says.

She applauds his resilience and attitude during his second experience with cancer: “Having done this twice is certainly tough for anybody.  Even knowing that this is something that will potentially affect his life and his trajectory and maybe his career, he still is the sort of person who is very optimistic and generally a good person who is going to figure it out.”

For now, the focus is on getting better and, on November 1, once again taking to the ice and dropping the puck again for Hockey Fights Cancer.

“It was a great opportunity when I was a kid, and now being able to not only experience it again but also tell our story a little bit, I’m very excited,” Jack says. “I watched the whole Hockey Fights Cancer ceremony last year. I was supposed to be at the game but I ended up getting a fever that night. Now I’m excited to bring my wife, Rachel, and my parents. It’s probably my favorite game of the year every year.”

Hockey Fights Cancer

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Editor’s Note: Cancer patient outcomes and experiences may vary, even for those with the same type of cancer. An individual patient’s story should not be used as a prediction of how another patient will respond to treatment. Roswell Park is transparent about the survival rates of our patients as compared to national standards, and provides this information, when available, within the cancer type sections of this website.