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