FORT MYERS — Geoffrey Goose has skipped a lot of school lately. He’s been late with homework, he’s missing basketball practice, and yes, he’s taking drugs.

This damn cancer is really messing up his sophomore year.

Goose’s hair falls out in the shower. He gets headaches and worries they’re a sign of something worse. With chemotherapy pills, IVs and steroids, he’s taking something like nine different medications each day.

“I think I’m just kind of in a blur where I’ve been spacing out a lot,” he said. “People will ask me, ‘Are you OK? Are you thinking (about it)?’ And I’m like, ‘No.’ I don’t think it’s caught up to me yet.”

Hard to catch up when it’s all so new. Goose, 16, from the South End, was diagnosed with stage II Hodgkin lymphoma two weeks ago, but he spent the weekend on a Jimmy Fund trip to spring training where he met Dustin Pedroia, got Jackie Bradley Jr. to sign a picture, and went on the field after Sunday’s game at JetBlue Park.

“So, getting cancer’s a good thing, now,” his friend Alfie Rudnick told him.

Perfect response. Just what Goose wanted to hear.

“Because you can laugh about it,” he said. “(Alfie’s) not worried about what he’s going to say. It’s just me. It’s just me with this thing now. And that’s what everyone here can bring because they’re meeting you as Geoffrey, not Geoffrey Who Now Has Cancer.”

Spearheaded by Lisa Scherber, joyfully known as the Jimmy Fund’s Play Lady, these outings are meant to bring patients together where the blur of cancer might go away for a bit.

Haley Ledbury got her Chris Sale jersey covered with autographs, including by Sale himself. Cameron Silvia caught a pitch from Joe Kelly, then asked Kelly to throw another with more oomph. Stephen Tremblay asked Pedroia for his phone number, then asked if his sister could go on a date with David Price.

“I’m married!” Price said, cracking up.

The Jimmy Fund brought 42 kids — 21 girls and 21 boys — with a large group of doctors and nurses to take care of any problems that might arise. The problems seem more likely logistical than medical.

“We don’t have that perspective in the clinic,” Dr. Brian Crompton said. “You see them trying to get through (airport) security, or they’re trying to get out of a wheelchair to go to the bathroom, or trying to get up a giant staircase to go down a waterslide with a prosthetic leg. It’s a whole different ballgame.”

Goose’s whole new ballgame started with a cough that just wouldn’t go away. Doctors checked him for pneumonia and treated him for whooping cough. A pulmonologist ordered a chest X-ray, then told him to go to the oncology department.

Goose didn’t remember what oncology meant.

“In the elevator, my mom kind of gave me a look,” he said. “Like a ‘not good’ kind of thing. And then I broke down crying — which I hadn’t done in a few years — uncontrollably.”

It took basically a month of additional tests before the final diagnosis, and Goose said that period of uncertainty was the worst. His third week of treatment starts today, right after the late-night flight home.

“I used to think missing a day (of school) was the worst,” Goose said. “Now, I’m kind of missing a month. Now, I’m not worried about my homework. I’m worried about my end-of-the-year exam that I might not be taking. . . . Starting right with treatment, it was like a break, and then life pauses. I think, with the blur, it’s because life is paused.”

Not many people understand the pause, Goose said. His closest friends have been amazing, and even schoolmates he’s not particularly close to have sent messages of support. His bond with his parents, Jon and Barb, is as close as it’s ever been, a silver lining of this whole ordeal.

But this weekend was a welcome break, and Goose said it wasn’t because of the Red Sox players (though, that part was pretty awesome). It was the other 41 kids who could relate to the pause, or the blur, or whatever you want to call it when a kid never again forgets that oncologist means cancer doctor.

It wasn’t until this trip that Goose met 23-year-old Alex DiBuono, who’s given him fresh perspective on what’s ahead. DiBuono was first diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia when he was 14. He played high school hockey during his treatment, beat the disease with 21⁄2 years of chemotherapy, had it come back at age 21, and beat it again with a bone-marrow transplant.

“I didn’t really want to talk to anyone when I first got diagnosed,” DiBuono said. “I didn’t want it to be who I was. I didn’t want to be a cancer patient. I just wanted to get it done. Over the years, I’ve realized that it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m proud of what I’ve been through, and I wouldn’t be the person I am if I didn’t go through it.”

DiBuono picked up a phrase from his grandmother.

“Just happy to be on the right side of the dirt,” they say.

That’s the harsh reality, and Goose said many well-intentioned friends and adults haven’t known how to handle that uncomfortable truth.