ORANGE PARK – The disease has been every bit as bad as it sounds: osteogenic sarcoma, or osteosarcoma.

When those words roll from Te’Voyn Berry’s lips, there is no hesitation, regret or pity. It is incomprehensible that a person so young is saddled with so much courage and resolve to deal with a cruel cancer that generally attacks the ends of long bones like the femur, tibia and humerus in children and young adults.

Not once. Twice.

And yet, he smiles.

“I didn't really dwell on it too much, because I knew God had me,” the Ridgeview High senior said. “I kept an open mind. Things were going to be better. That's what I kept telling myself. I kept reading my Bible; I kept praying just for guidance. That's how I made it.”

Te’Voyn also made it by setting a goal through all his surgeries, chemotherapies and rehabilitation: graduation day.

“I worked super, super hard for 17 years of my life to get here,” he said, “so graduation was definitely the goal. I’m looking forward to college, too. I’m going to Tuskegee University in Alabama. I’m excited for that as well.”

Te’Voyn’s difficult odyssey started in the summer before his junior year following a workout with his father. He wanted to play soccer for the Panthers, but he said his knee started to ache shortly after the training.

“It wasn’t going away,” he said. “It was progressing, getting worse. I was icing it, putting some ointments on it, stuff like that.”

An X-ray revealed a horrific diagnosis – osteosarcoma. Doctors were forced to remove a portion of his femur and start chemotherapy. He missed 108 of 180 days during his junior year.

Te'Voyn returned for this senior season, only to learn his body had betrayed him again. At the end of September, the cancer returned to his shoulder and lung.

He had surgery on his shoulder, which included the removal of his rotator cuff, but he decided against taking chemo pills. There still are “spots” near his spine, but it’s too close to his spinal cord for chemotherapy or surgery.

“I think to myself, it’s selfish to think about myself because there are people out here who have been much worse than I am,” Te’Voyn said. “I can still walk. There are people out there who’ve lost their legs, lost their arms. I can still walk.”

Especially on graduation night.