INDIANAPOLIS — Purdue is on the court battling North Carolina State in the Final Four on a big screen television that’s been brought in to the hospice unit at IU Health Methodist Hospital for Jonathan Avalos. But most of the game his eyes are closed. Mostly, he is listening to the sounds of the announcers and his friends and family all around him.
There are black and gold balloons hanging from the ceiling, Final Four decorations on the table and steak, crab legs and shrimp in abundance. This might be college basketball’s big night, but inside Methodist, this is Jonathan’s night, too.
This is his night to eat his favorite dinner, watch his favorite basketball team and feel just how amazing life can be, even if the pain of terminal brain cancer is being managed with intense medications. And even if Jonathan isn’t quite able to stay awake for the end when Purdue clinches a spot in the NCAA championship game.
No one knows how much longer the 22-year-old Purdue student has to live, but everyone knows he is dying. Treatments have been stopped because there are no treatments left that will help the advanced stages of his glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer Jonathan was diagnosed with the fall of his freshman year at Purdue.
Yet, while he is still here to cheer on his Boilermakers, even if it’s with a simple, mumbled, “I’m for Purdue,” his family and his medical staff were adamant. They were going to make sure to give Jonathan a Final Four for the ages.
‘He is a beautiful soul’
It was October of 2021 when Maria Avalos first noticed something was wrong with her only son. He was a freshman at Purdue and he was getting annoyed by his roommate, who wasn’t as squeaky clean and organized as he was.
Maria drove to Purdue to check on the situation and, as she pulled up, Jonathan started walking toward her car. As he got closer, she noticed his left eye looked odd. It was drifting and unfocused. She asked him what was wrong, and Jonathan told her not to worry. It was just stress.
Instead, Maria’s motherly instinct took over. She drove Jonathan to Methodist the next day at 10 a.m. for tests. By 7 p.m. that evening, the Avalos’ world was turned upside down. The scans showed a tumor, and it was obvious what kind of tumor it was.
Jonathan had glioblastoma, a brain cancer with an average survival time of 12 to 18 months, according to Glioblastoma Research Organization. Only 25% of patients survive more than one year, and only 5% of patients survive more than five years. “He was scared, but I don’t think, until now, I don’t think he realized how big this is,” Maria said Saturday as she fed Jonathan steak. “He would always say, ‘I’m going to be fine.'”
And for a while, it looked like Jonathan might be fine. After his diagnosis, he left Purdue and came home to go through treatment. When the scans came back, they were clear. He went back to Purdue and focused on his classes in his major of video game design. He was living life to the fullest.
But after a routine MRI in March 2023, Maria got a call from the doctor. “You have to come back. Something is there.” Jonathan started radiation. But this time, the tumors weren’t going away.
“One day, the doctor was talking with him, and he got the news that he had another tumor and he cried a little,” said Maria. “And then he said to his doctor, ‘I’m so sorry that you have to tell bad news to people every day.'”
His doctor was in shock. In 20 years of treating oncology patients, she had never had someone think of her feelings instead of their own when they were getting a diagnosis. But that is who Jonathan is.
“He is a beautiful soul,” said Mary Anne Ehrgott, one of Jonathan’s nurses on B5 Comfort Care, the hospice unit on the fifth floor at Methodist.
And that is why she, and the other staff, weren’t about to let Jonathan’s beloved Purdue play in its first Final Four since 1980 and not do something special for him.
‘He’s stupid strong, even now’
Ehrgott is wearing a Purdue shirt Saturday night. She is an IU fan. But for Jonathan she is honored to switch her college basketball allegiance. She has been caring for him for the past month.
When asked to describe Jonathan, she immediately starts to tear up.
“I’m going to cry,” she says. “He is funny, caring, ornery. We don’t usually get young people in this unit. We have, but not ones who can still talk to us and are here this long, so that makes a big difference.”
Jonathan likes to talk to his nurses about his high school wrestling career, in his weight class of 145 pounds. “I was the goat,” he told Diane Boswell one day. Now, on the door of his hospital room hangs a black T-shirt with “GOAT” in bold white letters.
Ehrgott and Boswell fell in love with the feisty, kind Jonathan who was in the prime of his life and struck with a cruel prognosis. By the time he came to their unit, there was no hope for recovery, only making his life as wonderful as it could be for the time he has left.
So, when Ehrgott asked Jonathan a few days ago what his favorite meal was, and he told her steak and crab legs, she and her coworkers knew what they had to do.
They went to work preparing a Final Four party that Jonathan and his family and friends would never forget. St. Elmo Steak House stepped up with a menu for a king. The manager of the hospice unit bought a Roku stick so Jonathan could watch the game on the big screen.
Throughout the game, Jonathan mostly laid back in his recliner and listened to the party. He listened as Purdue controlled the game and he listened as his friends talked about him and cried.
“He’s funny and he’s stupid strong, even now,” said Adrian Martinez, who met Jonathan in high school at Purdue Polytechnic.
“He was always so goofy, always knew how to make someone smile and laugh,” said Alexa Gomez, who has known Jonathan since elementary school. “And even if he was funny, he was still gentle. Any time I had a conversation with him I knew I was going to leave with a smile.”
‘I ain’t here for a long time’
Jonathan never wanted his story to be a secret. He didn’t want the cancer to win by shutting him up, by taking away his outgoing, funny, ornery, kind, caring personality.
Instead, he wanted to tell the world that dying is OK, that end-of-life discussions should not be taboo. He started telling his mother that one day he wanted to write a book about his cancer journey. He recorded as much as he could on his iPad and posted videos to Instagram.
“I’m going to tell my story so people can see reality,” Jonathan told Maria. “You know what? If I’m going, I’m going.'”
When Jonthan was a little boy, Maria would ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He always answered the same way. “I just want to be fun. Be a happy boy. Always.”
He had a favorite song by George Strait then, “Here for a Good Time,” and it is still his favorite song. The lyrics now have a much deeper meaning.
“Every day I wake up knowing it could be my last … I ain’t here for a long time … I’m here for a good time.”
Maria and Jonathan have had those tough, heart wrenching conversations about death. “And we cry, we talk about it, and he’s like, ‘You do whatever you want to do with my body. It’s not going to be me anymore.'”
He also tells his mom he wants to be remembered as the goat of wrestling and he wants the people he loves to keep moving forward.
“He said, ‘If I go, you have to keep moving forward. Because my sister is going to need you. I’m not going to be here to protect her,'” Maria said. “‘So, I need you to cry a little bit. You can be sad for a little bit. But then I’m going to be super mad if you keep doing that. You have to keep living.'”
The score of the Purdue game is 47-35 with his beloved Boilermakers in the lead and Jonathan hasn’t seen enough. But his body tells him he has seen enough. He is tired and he needs to sleep, so he tells his mom.
As she wheels him back to his room and then tucks him into bed, Jonathan is still wearing his Purdue T-shirt and shorts, and he is smiling.
Sweet dreams are about to happen for Jonathan. He will wake up Sunday to a Final Four victory, Purdue 63, NC State 50.
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.
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