It all started with a Facebook post about needing a home for a teenage boy who had lost both his parents.

Doctor James C. Wittig, a single, never-married physician, always wanted to be a dad, but joked that he “wished he could start fatherhood with a 13-year-old.” Seeing this post, he saw it as the opportunity he had been praying for, and volunteered to raise the boy. After living together for months, Wittig would discover that he and the boy he adopted, Ronnie, shared a special bond, as reported by PEOPLE.

View this post on Instagram

Wittig was shown a snapshot of two osteosarcoma patients he had treated in the early 1980s, over 40 years ago. Both of the women in the photo had the same type of bone cancer but received different treatments: one had a limb amputated, while the other had limb-sparing surgery.

Wittig was a fellow when he cared for the patient whose limb was saved. When her doctor, the fellowship director,........

© Upworthy