Ironman competitor raises money for Aurora kid dealing with side effects of cancer ...Middle East

DENVER (KDVR) — After being diagnosed with cancer twice, this Christmas, a 12-year-old boy dealing with the lingering side effects of the disease will get a little help from a stranger. 

Last December, FOX31 first introduced you to Amner. 

At age nine, Amner went into remission from brain cancer, but the cancer came back. His mom, Judith Baires, said that after a rough radiation, he was in an Arizona hospital for a whole month. 

"He had a really, really rough fight with this relapse. It was a really hard chemo that he stayed in the hospital for a whole month each chemo. He had three chemos," said Baires.

Amner is once again in remission. He was recovering, but around July, his parents started noticing that he was having trouble walking. It turns out he has necrosis -- a side effect of the treatments.  

According to the Cleveland Clinic, necrosis is the death of the cells in body tissues. After necrosis, experts said dead body tissue can be removed, but it can’t be brought back to good health.

Because of necrosis, Amner is having trouble walking and talking.  

“It's like it keeps eating from the brain so it damages all the healthy tissues, the cells the brain has, and it kills the veins on the brain,” said Baires. “So, until he's done with therapies and how he recovers, they don’t know exactly what kind of damage it caused and is going to be permanent. But for right now, they said that they don't think it's going to cause him like really bad damage because he's walking, he's starting to walk, take steps and talking better, moving better.”  

Man runs Ironman races to honor, raise money for Amner

After FOX31 aired Amner's story, a friend shared it with a man named Matt Conahan.

Conahan had taken it upon himself to run Ironman races and raise money for strangers -- which now included Amner. 

An Ironman race is a triathlon that spans over 140.6 miles. Competitors swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run 26.2 miles. 

"I'd always heard it's the hardest thing, the hardest race that anybody can do. It was something that was so unfathomable in a lot of ways to me," Conahan said.

When Conahan raced in honor of Amner, he explained what was going through his head.

“Why am I doing this? And that's when you really dig deep. I always say, you really come to know yourself in these races. Anybody can walk off that course. No one really would say anything. Oh, you're competing in Ironman. You make up whatever excuse, no one really knows. You come to find yourself and you do. You really know who you are and the warrior that you are and the spirit that you're made of and the cloth that you're cut from and, there are many times that I thought about, you know, my mom, Amner, his family,” said Conahan.

Following that race, he raised $10,000 for a young mom he didn’t know and then $5,000 for Amner.     

"We met with Matt. That was the first time we met him and he said that he had a surprise for him, and it was a really big surprise for him," said Baires. "So, when he got there, Amner was surprised. He started crying because he was super happy because Matt gave us a check."

"He didn't know me from anybody. He looked at me and I told him, I said, 'I just want you to know how proud I am of you,'" Conahan said.

This summer, Amner and his family received a $5,000 check from a complete stranger, and since then, that complete stranger -- Conahan -- has had a big impact on Amner‘s life.  

'I have this mission that's tattooed on my heart'

Swimming, biking and running 140.6 miles is no easy feat, but Conahan said his motivation is his own mom. She was diagnosed with cancer a while back and is now a survivor. 

"It goes all the way back when I was in high school. My mom got diagnosed with breast cancer. It was an intense time period in my entire family's life," Conahan said.

He said he prayed and made a pact.

"I remember just getting down on my knees and saying, 'God, please, you know, if you can do anything, I promise you I'll be indebted to you,'" Conahan said. "Just please let my mom live."

Conahan continues that pact today by raising money for people like Amner.

He raised the money by running back-to-back half-Ironman races for Amner just like his back-to-back bouts of brain cancer.

"I got to be about 30 years old and I said, I still have that pact. I still have that debt that I have to pay," he said. "I have this mission that's tattooed on my heart."

Now, they have an unbreakable bond. Conahan even gifted Amner an Ironman mask for Christmas.

"Remember you're the Ironman," Conahan said. "You're the superhero."

Amner's family has set up a GoFundMe to help pay for his continued recovery.

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