When Ryan Van Demark walked into a Buffalo children's hospital, he never imagined he'd leave with a friend for life.

Van Demark spent three seasons in Upstate New York before signing with Minnesota this spring as a free agent. He regularly participated in the Bills Community Tuesday events, and during a hospital visit in May 2024, he met 4-year-old Bryn.

Despite being recently diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Bryn wore a smile with her soft-pink nightgown and fuzzy slippers. She came across Ryan and Sam Martin in the hallway and didn't hesitate to grab the hand of the Bills tackle who towered over her. She chatted away, pulling Ryan along on one side and her rattling I.V. pole on the other.

Bryn showed him "all her treasures, all her little hospital world" that day, noted her mother Erica.

Ryan felt a quick connection to Bryn that day; when time constraints prompted him and his teammates to visit other patients, he assured Bryn he'd return soon.

Erica recalled feeling doubtful, a protective mother hoping a professional football player wasn't making promises he wouldn't deliver.

But Ryan did come back, a few days later. He sat in a much-too-small chair and let Bryn — wearing a Bills T-shirt and surrounded by bright-colored Squishmallows™ — paint his fingernails pink and purple.

"She was a little shy, but you could tell she was also bubbly and energetic, and what she was going through didn't affect her personality," Ryan said. "We just really hit it off."

"They talked like they had known each other forever," Erica recalled with a smile.

New perspective

More than two years later, it really feels like the pair has been pals forever.

When Ryan enters U.S. Bank Stadium for Minnesota's Crucial Catch game Sunday, he may be states away from his buddy Bryn but will carry her in his heart — along with the gratitude that she continues to defy the odds.

It was discovered early on in Bryn's treatment she has a rare mutation that occurs in only 1% of children and causes chemotherapy to be ineffective.

"Technically, her odds were really bad," Erica said.

After an initial immunotherapy drug also proved unsuccessful, doctors opted for CAR-T cell therapy, which changes a patient's own immune cells in a laboratory and "turns them into little cancer-fighting cells" before infusing them back into the patient. Bryn tolerated the treatment well, which meant then undergoing a stem cell transplant.

Since that transplant on Oct. 18, 2024, Bryn has been in remission.

She continues to navigate side effects from the stem cell transplant, as well as symptoms of GVHD (Graft Versus Host Disease). But just like the first day Bryn met "Vandy," she maintains her signature sweet, sassy and spunky demeanor.

Bryn has won over not only Ryan but his entire family, who's developed a close relationship with the Ailinger family. Ryan's mother Marianne looks forward to the regular updates on Bryn and conversations with Erica.

"She'll send me pictures of Bryn watching Ryan play or just asking about him. She calls me 'Mrs. Vandy,' which is so cute," said Marianne, who loves purchasing birthday and Christmas presents for the now-7-year-old.

"It's fun to shop for a girl, since I only had boys and no grandchildren yet," she noted with a smile.

Connecting with Bryn and her family is especially meaningful as the Van Demarks have walked their own cancer journey, as well.

Almost exactly 10 years before Bryn received her diagnosis, Marianne battled breast cancer.

And though Marianne sought to keep "everything as normal as possible" for her sons, ages 16 and 18 at the time, Ryan remembers coming home from school and seeing his usually active mom "just lying in bed, which was crazy."

Thankfully, Marianne has also been in remission for the past 12 years after undergoing chemotherapy and surgery at Sloan Kettering in New York City.

"Because my mom went through cancer and then my aunt also went through it, whenever I have the opportunity, I try to get involved [with Crucial Catch initiatives]," Ryan said. "And then meeting Bryn, seeing her go through that as a child, it [impacts you].

"In Buffalo, me, Dalton Kincaid and Tommy Doyle, we'd always go to the hospital and visit the kids. And leaving, we'd always get back in the car, look at each other and just be like, 'Wow, football really doesn't matter.' In the sense that it grounded us, per say. It gave us a whole different perspective on life," he continued. "You see these kids and think, 'Wow, they're going through so much more than we could ever imagine.' I mean, everyone complains. But when you really sit down and you see these kids battling for life and death … they're truly the strongest kids ever."

Long-distance friendship

The past 28 months have been filled with FaceTime calls, encouraging text messages and visits between Bryn and Ryan.

They attended a Bills Crucial Catch event at Dave & Busters — where Buffalo TE Dawson Knox teased Bryn for dismissing him while waiting for Ryan to arrive — and spoke at a gala raising money for P.U.N.T. Pediatric Cancer Collaborative, the nonprofit that prompted Van Demark's initial hospital visit.

Bryn joined Ryan for a presentation to the Lancaster High School football team, located near her elementary school, and stole the show.

"Bryn comes in and just said, 'Pick me up,' because he's so tall," Erica laughed. "He literally carried her the whole time, and she was just laying her head on his shoulder while he gave his speech."

Ryan also sends gifts, and one year he paid for holiday lights to be strung up at the Ailingers' home.

Their bond is cemented.

So Ryan's decision to join the Vikings in free agency this spring was a bittersweet one for the lineman, who immediately called Bryn and Erica to let them know he'd be relocating to Minnesota.

"Of course I told him, 'You've got to do what's good for you. We'd follow you wherever," Erica said. "And for Bryn, that was it. She was like, 'I look good in purple.' "

It doesn't matter that her parents are lifelong Buffalo fans or that she lives in the heart of #BillsMafia territory. Bryn's allegiance ultimately is to her best friend Vandy, not to a team. She's fully immersed herself into Vikings fandom, though, and was overjoyed when the organization mailed a Crucial Catch-themed package this offseason.

When her classmates dress head-to-toe in Bills gear on Fridays, Bryn proudly wears her Vikings gear and purple sunglasses. She cheers loudly from Buffalo every Vikings game day, and there's no question she'll be wearing purple-and-gold this weekend for Minnesota's Week 4 game.

The only time she's reverted back? Shortly after Ryan signed with Minnesota, when she dressed as him for a "wax museum" school project — helmet and all. Ryan FaceTimed in, of course, to watch her speech on the person she most looks up to.

Sometimes it all still feels surreal to Erica.

"He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to go out of his way back on that first visit," she said. "I understand you come to the hospital, you try to help the kids smile and all that. But he went above and beyond. And that was that."

Ryan is living out his dreams being in the NFL, a goal he often questioned if he'd reach.

And beyond his work as a swing tackle for the Vikings offensive line, he's immensely thankful for the platform he's afforded by playing professional football.

"To have a voice, to be able to speak on things that can really change lives is pretty awesome," Ryan said. "I never thought I would be changing lives — but here I am now, becoming best friends with a little girl who had cancer, who's now in full remission, and we have a connection that will live forever."

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