An 18-year-old was gifted a Ford Mustang from his dad, but not for the reasons one may think — and Joe Tegerdine made that clear in his post to X (formerly known as Twitter). "For those wondering why I’d buy my 18yr old son a 330hp Mustang, well, he’s been given months to live and can’t work long enough to buy one himself," the post read. "His comment on the way home, 'Dad, I’m going to squeeze a few extra months of life just to be able to drive this.'" The dad then added a hashtag stating #cancersucks.
His son, Joseph Tegerdine, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer in 2019 at 13 years old. He was complaining of knee pain, but as an active teenager they didn't think too deeply into it. However, an X-ray and MRI soon led to his cancer diagnosis.
Within 10 days, he had his first chemotherapy treatment. He then had a rotationplasty on his right leg. “They take out the tumor and any of the surrounding bone that could have been affected, and then the rotate the lower leg and reattach it to your femur so your ankle becomes your knee and then the foot fits into the prosthesis,” Joe explained. “He chose to do that because it gives him the best options for mobility.”
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After the procedure, he completed more chemo in fall of 2019. He then started physical therapy to learn to walk with his prothesis, and also joined the swim team. But in 2022, his cancer had spread to his lungs and he had to undergo two more surgeries to remove it.
In January 2023, Joseph started a clinical trial for a new treatment. Unfortunately, he had to drop out of the trial three weeks in because his cancer had returned, this time in his left leg. In February 2024, they discovered that the cancer was back in the teen's lungs.
Given just months to live, the teen's family has been trying to cross things off his bucket list with him. Joseph had been saving money to buy himself a car, but when it was discovered that his cancer had progressed, his parents made one of his dreams come true by buying him the Mustang.
And the X post also led Joseph to get personally invited by Ford CEO Jim Farley to visit Ford Performance Racing School. When asked what other bucket list things he wanted to do, the teen mentioned spending time with his family — his parents, his older sisters, and his younger brother.
"If you look at my day-to-day life, it's about as ideal as it gets," he said. "I've got my dream car, I have a family that I love, a girlfriend that I hang out with all the time and that I love, I play piano, which I love, I read books that I personally pick on topics that interest me. It's fantastic."
"Feeling fulfilled in the future is the hard part," Joseph continued. "But I've managed to make my day-to-day life fulfilling for however long I have."
