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Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott started making this cancer patient’s day two years ago. Sunday and Monday, he took it to a new level

ARLINGTON -- Jake Silver still wonders how he didn't flinch.

The then-16-year-old bone cancer patient in Massachusetts was lying still in a pre-surgery scan in July 2016. His sister called, crying.

"Zeke Elliott asked for your bracelets," Halle Silver told their mom Melissa Duca on the phone.

Halle, then 14, was shocked. Of all the Ohio State Buckeye football players she'd messaged on Instagram about her brother's illness, Elliott was the last one she expected to respond. She figured a freshman walk-on, maybe. But the Dallas Cowboys' first-round draft pick?

"As soon as I saw he responded," Halle said from AT&T Stadium on Sunday ahead of the Cowboys-Jaguars game, "I started bawling my eyes out.