14-Year-Old Ohio Boy Freezes Sperm After Rare Cancer Diagnosis: ‘I Want to Be A Dad One Day’ (Exclusive)

Before starting intense chemo that would leave him sterile, Bo Opperman chose to preserve his sperm for the future

In Fall 2024, eighth-grader Bo Opperman was playing right tackle when he suffered an injury during a school football game in his hometown of Milan, Ohio.

“I was blocking the guy and then I get pushed down from behind, and then, all of a sudden, I feel a sharp kick in my back,” Bo, now 14, says.

About two weeks later, he noticed a lump on his lower back. He assumed it was related to the kick.

“I was just itching my back. All of a sudden, I felt this lump on my back, so I went to show my mom.”

Staci Opperman, a special needs aide, remembers thinking that the lump on the lower left side of his back didn’t look like a mosquito bite. “It was bigger,” about the size of a golf ball, she says. “When we pressed on it, it hurt really, really, really bad.”

They iced it and hoped it would go away. When it didn’t, they took him to their family doctor, who prescribed antibiotics, and then stronger antibiotics a month later in January 2025.

The soft lump hardened and became darker, and black and blue. The physician thought it was a fatty cyst or possibly scar tissue. Bo was referred to a surgeon, who removed the lump on March 11.

A biopsy showed it was cancer. Bo was diagnosed on April 7 with superficial Ewing Sarcoma, a malignant bone and soft tissue tumor near the skin that is often found in teens, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

 

The following week he had an MRI, a PET scan, a chest X-ray and bloodwork. The good news, his mother says, is that the cancer was localized in just one area. He had a surgical revision on April 24 to make sure they got all the cancer out.

“We got lucky,” Staci says. “There was no more cancer in the spot.”

But then they learned that he would need 14 rounds of aggressive chemo that would cause infertility.

“We were told that two of his chemo medicines will kill his sperm,” Staci says. “It was horrible to think that my son could never have a chance to have kids.”

Staci says she went to her car and cried.

“It was really hard to hear,” she says. “I was like, ‘There is no way that my son could not be a dad.’ There’s no way.”

Bo is his mother’s only biological child. He has an older sister from his father’s previous marriage. His dad, Shawn Opperman, is a facilities operations specialist for the border patrol. Staci says he “broke down” when he learned his son wouldn’t be able to carry on their family name.

 

The couple told Bo what the doctor said and asked if he wanted to freeze his sperm.

“The way he looked at me was like, ‘Are you serious right now, Mom?’ I said, ‘Well, this is serious. Do you want to be able to have kids when you’re older? This is totally up to you, If you decide you don’t want to, we are okay with that, but this is your decision,’ ” she recalls.

Bo didn’t hesitate. He said he absolutely wanted to go forward with fertility treatment because he knows he wants to have kids, he tells PEOPLE.

“I want to be a dad,” he says. “I think the first few stages are going to be annoying, but then, after that, I feel like it would be perfect. I like taking care of kids. They’re funny sometimes,” he says.

“I just think it would be really fun to have an extra person around the house instead of just having two people, which might get boring. It would be great to have a kid.”

Bo loves spending time with his 2-year-old niece and 4-year-old nephew. And he’s developed a close relationship with the special needs students his mom works with.

“He is wonderful with kids,” she says. “He will be a great dad one day.” The family felt relieved that he went through with the process, even though Staci admits it was hard to ask him to “make such an adult decision.” The family started a GoFundMe to help cover the costs.

In mid-May, the same day he visited the fertility clinic, Bo started chemo.

Now he is eyeing eighth-grade graduation.

“He asked the surgeon, ‘Hey doctor. I have graduation on the 29th of May. Will I have my hair?’ That about broke me. He loves his hair,” Staci says.

“The doctor said she couldn’t guarantee it. She said there’s a kid who’s on the same chemo regimen as Bo and he lost his hair very fast.”

Staci offered to shave her head in solidarity. Bo told her no.

His next round of chemo is scheduled for June 3, and he will be in the hospital for at least five days. His chemo treatments will last six months to a year, depending on how his body responds.

But he has advice for other kids diagnosed with cancer:

“Just push through it. You’re brave and you’ll come out the other side eventually,” he says. “Do whatever the doctors tell you and just follow what other people ask you to do, and you’ll get through it.”

And fortunately, he’ll have the opportunity to teach that same lesson of resilience to a child of his own someday.