GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) Months after a young hockey player checked in at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital, it’s safe to say he earned his tap-out.

Sitting beside his mom, dad and two brothers in a hospital bed, 11-year-old Mason Madden anxiously waited for a nurse to cut the security bracelet from his ankle.

“I’m leaving this place after three months,” Madden told affiliate News 8. “Feels like forever.”

It was all smiles Friday morning as Mary Free Bed staff and two members of the Grandville varsity hockey team lined the halls. The young player requested maize and blue for his departure celebration, and his caretakers went above and beyond with pom-poms and hockey sticks, tapping them on the ground as Mason passed by.

“I knew we had a good support system, but I mean, the amount of people that have shown their love and support … it’s phenomenal,” said Mason’s mom Stephanie Madden.

Mason was a seemingly healthy boy, playing for the Grand Valley Stars and enjoying activities that most 11-year-olds do. That was until January 2024.

“Mason had what we thought was a leg injury, and we spent most of 2024 trying to figure out what exactly it was,” said Mike Madden, Mason’s father. “We thought it started out as a muscle strain and then it turned into a potential fractured femur. And through lots of doctor’s visits and stuff, it didn’t get better. Through therapy, it didn’t get better. So we ended up checking them into Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital on December 10, and on Dec. 13, they found a large tumor in the spinal cord.”

Mason had emergency surgery to remove the tumor and has spent the last few months working on recovery, including relearning how to walk and do everyday tasks.

When asked what he told himself every day to push through, the 11-year-old said, “If I don’t do the therapy, I will never get better.”

His goal now is to walk again and he has a lot of people cheering him on. 

Last month, fresh off a regional championship win against Byron Center, the entire Grandville varsity hockey team stopped by Mary Free Bed to visit Mason.

Then, earlier this week, he got to play sled hockey with some Grand Rapids Griffins players.

He hopes to be back on the ice very soon.

“He could play sled hockey if he isn’t strong enough to skate again, but the hope is, hopefully he can skate again,” Stephanie Madden said.

The journey has been far from easy for the Madden family.

“We’ve both still been working, so it’s been hard,” Stephanie Madden said. “Everybody asks me, you know, ‘What can we do for you?’ I said and I always say, ‘Can you clone me so I can be in a couple different places at once?’ So I can spend time with him, spend time with my other two kids and my husband and still work. It’s just, it’s been a lot.”

Having Mason back home will ease some of that stress, but he still has a long road to recovery. That’s why the Madden’s are taking it one day at a time and accepting all the support along the way.

Stephanie added: “Even if you’re strong and you don’t think you need help, you do need help in some way, shape or form.”