Do you believe in miracles?

Today was our appointment down at UC Davis to finalize everything with official biopsy results, and proceed to port, bone marrow biopsy, and then start chemo plans.  The nurse took us back to our room and told us it was a pre-op appointment.  While waiting for the doctor to come in, we felt the blow...pre-op meant surgery and it seemed finalized now.  We were so bummed, as we had really hoped the doctor was wrong.  Then the doctor walks in, looks at us, and and says, " Good news....no cancer!"  We were completely speechless...the nurse was even wrong!  No pre-op!  No cancer!  The doctor was surprised at our silence...we were screaming for joy inside, but completely overwhelmed (in a good way!). Completely miraculous!  He said it is most likely some infectious disease, so they are sending us to a infectious disease specialist...possibility he mentioned was Valley Fever, but still unknown.  They are running more tests on his tissue biopsy and are getting us in ASAP.  Looks like probably Tuesday, March 4, but all this seems so much less than the cancer route.  A huge weight has been lifted from our family and all our support around us!  I still am so overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of all of you around us who were right by our side, ready to go into battle.  God bless each of you for your hearts...I only pray that we can learn to do the same from this!  We will keep updating and all prayers were so appreciated...love you all!

Home for now..

Gabe is recovering very well so they discharged us today. He got his drainage tube out, which was painful for him but he stayed strong through the whole process. They said we might as well await the results at home, comfortably. As of now, we are scheduled to be back on Thursday with the surgeon to discuss results. They have already paired us up with the hematology and oncology doctors in preparation for further testing and treatment. Ughh, feels like a punch in the stomach... Trying to be strong but feeling weak. We decided to make sure Gabe fully understands what is going on. When we asked him if he knew what was going on, he told us that he thought he had an infection in his chest, but he had the surgery to fix it.... This is when it has hit me the hardest so far. How do you tell your child that they might have cancer??? We had to tell him as we knew the oncologist was coming in to talk to him. He broke down a bit, which was very hard for all of us, but being Gabe, he had us laughing at a joke by the end of the talk. He is being so awesome so far! We met the oncologist and she said they have a plan set up but we need to do more testing and get biopsy results still! Just seems crazy that they seem to have decided it is cancer without official results, but I'm sure they have seen a lot and know what they are looking for.  We will still wait and be praying for a miracle, but fully trusting God to get us through this mess. Everyone has been so amazing and supportive! We have no words to express how thankful we are. Please keep the prayers coming!

Anxiously waiting..

We arrived at UC Davis this morning at 6:30 for Gabe's surgery. Everything went very smoothly and the I.V. went in just fine (Gabe's biggest fear). Surgery lasted about 2 hours and the surgeons feel like they were able to obtain a great biopsy sample removed from lung and lymph nodes. Unfortunately, the doctor came out and informed us that the lungs looked very abnormal and he really believes that we are looking at a case of Lymphoma... We are now nervously waiting to see if the biopsy results confirm the doctors opinion.. At this point, we are staying overnight and hoping that we will have some preliminary results tomorrow. He has a drainage tube inserted into the side of his chest that also must look clear before we go. Gabe is remaining very calm and being so strong through all of this. We are so blessed that God gave him such a chill personality, especially in a time like this. Of course we are praying for results to be different, but we are preparing ourselves for a tough diagnosis. Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers for us during this time.. Please keep them coming as we nervously wait.

Pre-Op

Today we had our Pre-Op with Dr.Raff and Dr.Yeh at UC Davis. They were both very amazing doctors who gave us much more information than we have known all along. God has definitely placed us in the right hands.. Gabe had an EKG, labs done and a chest X-Ray today. He has been such a trooper! We arrive at 6:30 tomorrow morning for a scheduled biopsy surgery. They will be making three incisions on his right side to biopsy his swollen lymph nodes and a part of his lungs. He will have have a drainage tube inserted to remain for a few days. After the surgery, we wait for results which can take anywhere from 3-4 hours to 3-4 days. The doctor is very confident that we will receive results through this biopsy. We are so comforted by the amount of people we know who are thinking and praying for us. We will keep everyone updated once we find out more tomorrow. Thank you all so much!

We Officially Have a Date!!

It feels sort of surreal that we officially have a date for Gabe's Biopsy. He goes in for his pre-op with the cardiologist and surgeon and blood work tomorrow (Thursday). His biopsy will be Friday morning. We talked this over with Gabe and his reaction was the complete opposite this time. He was sort of in a panic (what we expected the first go around). If you have a moment we are asking God to ease his stress and to give him comfort. We will keep you updated as we find out more. Please just know your prayers are coveted. Thank you for all the love and support.

Love,
The McNeilly Family

What a Waste!

We had our appointment this morning down at UC Davis. After arranging the other kids the night before, we got up early and drove down there. Our appointment was at 10:00 am but we arrived early to get our paperwork done and what not.

Basically what our appointment boiled down to was sitting down to meet the doctor and for him to tell us they can't do anything until they receive Gabe's records. However, our doctor's office told us a week and a half ago that Gabe's records have been sent down)

Can you say the word Frustration?!?

Basically we are waiting for a call back from the doctor once he receives the records (which could be anywhere from now until the end of next week) and set up another appointment date.


We are taking the afternoon to spend sometime together down here in sac. Oh, how we are praying to get the ball rolling and for this to all be over soon!!


Love, 
The McNeilly Family

One Step in the Right Direction

We received a voice mail on Friday from UC Davis. They said they were going to schedule an appointment on February 18th to go see a cardiologist. 

(Yes, a cardiologist for a very enlarged lymph node near the lungs?)

 John and I were very confused on why we were going to see a cardiologist. We called the doctor here in Paradise to see if we heard this correctly before we called them back. Basically it was a roller coaster of phone calls back and forth between doctor's offices and us.

 They realized that he should be going to see a cardiothoracic surgeon (Could you imagine if we waited 3 weeks to see a heart doctor ?!?) We are so relieved to know that we are now headed in the right direction...thank you Lord! Gabe has an appointment on Monday, February 10th with Dr. Raff down at UC Davis. 

We feel like there is some light now.  Thank you for all the love and support. 

Love, 
The McNeilly Family

How it all started

On the morning of Tuesday, January 7th we had taken Gabe into the emergency room for what we thought was appendicitis. He was having sharp pains on his lower right side. They did an ultrasound and they were not able to see anything. His blood work came back normal. The pain was starting to be less and less as the day went on so they sent us home that afternoon. We kept Gabe on a liquid diet and by that evening the pain was getting worse again. We took him back into the ER that morning and they did a C-T Scan on his lower abdominal to check out his appendix. In the C-T Scan they found a large mass up near his chest (This is not related to the pain). They were alarmed by that so they went in for another C-T Scan of his chest. It turns out that his lymph nodes near his lungs were greatly enlarged. We had an appointment the next day to go see his doctor so we could be referred to a pulmonologist.  The following week we were at the pulmonologist. He was looking over the C-T Scan and he checked lymph nodes throughout Gabe's body to see if we could biopsy one of those. The only enlarged lymph nodes were in his chest. During this appointment we were also told he has spots on his lungs (We are not quite sure what that means at this point). We were 

scheduled for a Mediastinal Bronchoscopy for Monday, January 27th. This is were they heavily sedated Gabe and went down his throat to biopsy the lymph node. When they got in there, they realized the lymph node was very vascular and bled a lot. He was sore afterwards but seems to be doing good (just a little freaked out that he was awake for the whole thing). We received a phone call yesterday from the doctor saying that the results were inconclusive due to the amount of blood in them. All the blood work they did ruled out that there is no infection. At this point we are unsure of what we are dealing with. The doctor gave us a couple options that would be more invasive than the last procedure. He told us to think on it and call him back with an answer in the morning. Feeling like we just wasted a week and that we were back at the beginning was not what we wanted to hear.  Through lots of prayer last night and today, God gave us a peace about going in the direction of pediatric specialists. We are being referred to UC Davis. We are asking for prayer and want to thank everyone for all the support and love they have given us. We will keep you updated on this blog as we find out more. 

Love,

The McNeilly Family

(John, Kim, Abbey, Gabe, Bethany)

Bethany, Abbey, Gabe