Ariana Grande Concert On Dying Teen’s Bucket List

OAK GROVE, MO — Cancer is eating away at Jordan Rodriguez, a 15-year-old suburban Kansas City teen. He fought medulloblastoma — a malignant brain tumor that affects kids — for almost three years. It looked like he’d beaten it, too. But last month, doctors said the cancerous tumor was back and had spread to his spine, his tailbone and his chest.

Spend your time doing the things you love, the doctors at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City told Jordan and his family. One of the Oak Grove teen’s top priorities is a dance with his mom, Jenn Bales, and he’s been practicing

The teen, who was first diagnosed in April 2015, put together a bucket list. It includes a visit to Clearwater, Florida. He wants to go to Universal Studio to visit the Hogwarts castle featured in the “Harry Potter” movies, and he wants to see an NBA basketball game — preferably one in which the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Golden State Warriors play. He wants to go to a live concert and see one of his favorite pop stars.

“Also, this may be a long shot,” Britni Brayfield wrote on a GoFundMe page created to help fund his bucket list, “but he would love to meet Ariana Grande.”

The fund stood at a little more than $14,700 by late Thursday afternoon.

News the tumors had returned and spread throughout his body was a blow to Jordan, who thought he had beat medulloblastoma in June 2016, when doctors said he was cancer free and was in the 80 percent cancer rate.

But he’s determined to live each day as if it were his last.

“Yeah,” he told Kansas City television station KCMD, “don’t let cancer get in the way.”

Bales says her son is “such a sweet spirit” who won’t let cancer define who he is. Nor does she.

“I feel like it’s almost a blessing in a way that we get to plan the time, and be with him, and make everything for him as great as we possibly can,” Bales said

Photo via GoFundMe