Brody Nelson isn’t old enough to go to high school let alone be an alum, but on Thursday, he’ll be Homecoming Parade Marshal for Cleburne High School.
UPDATE: Brody Nelson passed away on Aug. 23, 2019, according to a post on the Fight Like Brody Facebook page.
At 9-years-old, Brody Nelson is a typical boy. He loves baseball, fishing, and his hometown team, the Cleburne High School Yellow Jackets.
Thursday, Brody will be Marshal of the Homecoming Parade.
"It's almost like getting a parade to celebrate," said Courtney Nelson, Brody's mom. "I know it's not about him. It's about the Jackets, but for Brody it's a little bit more."
In January, Brody was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor called Anaplastic Ganglioglioma with a TRK mutation. Conventional chemotherapy didn't help.
"I went to sleep and couldn't get up," Brody explained. "It was like a Mack truck hit us," said Nelson. "You can't prepare yourself for seeing that."
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Brody is part of a clinical trial at St. Jude's. His mom said the latest scans show tumors that were once growing are gone, and the biggest tumor that was the size of a lemon is not measurable.
"Medically speaking, he shouldn't be here," Nelson said. "But here he is and he's very much an almost 10-year-old boy."
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The Cleburne High baseball team has taken Brody under their wing, making him an honorary member. "He wasn't the cancer kid to them. He was just a teammate. Just a boy," Nelson explained.
Now, he's just a parade marshal. The youngest in Cleburne High School history.
"Awesome," Brody said. "I'm going to throw candy."
The parade is Thursday at 6 p.m. Cleburne plays University (Waco) in the Homecoming game Friday night.
