On March 4th our 10 year old son was admitted to the childrens hospital with pneumonia. He was treated with IV antibiotics and they inserted a chest tube to remove fluid from the right lung. On March 11th…thinking he was going home, his abdomen swelled slowly..and by March 14th his abdomen was 44 inches and he was moved to ICU. Friday. March 15th. 10:45 am I was informed Nathan had cancer. 10-12 masses in the abdomen. . Along with friends n family….and we all had high hopes. Later on we were told it …was Burkitts Lymphoma. Rapid moving cancer but rapidly treatable. Very optimistic. We got to talk to him before they sedated him for the chest tubes, breathing tube and the ports for chemo and dialysis. The fluid from the cancer had moved into the lungs. (The original fluid when he went in was more than likely from the cancer and not pneumonia). Pneumonia had been the focal point the whole time..him not eating, fever, increased white blood cells, etc. etc. …we saw him after all the procedures and he was heavily sedated. They were gonna start chemo that Saturday. We left the hospital to pick up my car at the other hospital in Plano. 10 min after we left we got a call saying he had “coded” ….we raced back to the hospital and I have never ran so fast to get up to the floor. They whisked us in this lil room. They had us sign papers for life support…to get him stabilized. The cancer had released so much potassium, they couldn’t restart his BIG heart. The worst day of our lives. We all went in and said our final goodbyes. Preliminary autopsy shows 35 masses. They took samples and all his lymph nodes. Our son was a loving, giving, caring young man who would do anything for anyone. We dont know that much about Burkitts or what attributed to his demise. We are still waiting for the final autopsy report. He did not know he had cancer. I feel so lost. Not knowing. What did we miss? …How could this happen to us? ….I just want to know how to help with early detection. RIP my lovely boy. Please help us. We read online and read and read but still….we are at a loss. His love for giraffes and other human beings far outweighed his love for himself. We would like to know if we could do a fundraiser for the BURKITTS LYMPHOMA SOCIETY in honor of Nathan here in our community?
Submitted by; Linda Langley