Gideon Purchase began to worry his parents, he began to lose his appetite, little by little at first which is why they thought that maybe it was because he was teething. When they started to notice that he was developing yellow bruises under both his eyes, then his parents really were beginning to seriously worry…
Gideon, 2 years old started to look quite sick, his parents took him straight away to the doctors, then very next day after that noticed these latest symptoms, it was what the doctors told them that made their world crash all around them!
The doctors said that Gideon had neuroblastoma and it was in stage 4…
Katie Purchase said:
“It’s literally as bad as it gets”
The team at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital conducted many more tests but they too confirmed the severity of the diagnosis, such a sad moment for a young person, with their potential whole life you thought they had ahead of them, just to be told that may not be the case anymore.
Dr. Sara Federico of St. Jude said:
“His entire face and skull was full of cancer, and all of his bones were full of cancer”
“He had a large tumor that was present in the middle of his body.”
Gary and Katie, his parents were shocked beyond belief at what had happened, the news really rocked their world but of course not in a good way at all! The Doctors did have some glimmers of hope though…
There was a clinical trial that could be of some help, just a little light at the end of the tunnel, but no matter how small that light was they had to take it!
That little glimmer of hope was an antibody introduced alongside chemotherapy, through the whole process. After six weeks the doctors were further shocked by a sudden change in Gideons Health.
Federico said:
“The early results are surpassing all of our wildest expectations”
“He went from 84 percent of his marrow having a tumor to zero percent.”
By the six week mark, most of Gideon’s tumors had reduced to nothing, his legs had no tumors, his face and arms were clear too, the last few tumors that remained were getting smaller every day!
With many months of treatment ahead of him, Gideon’s treatment, for the moment, looked really positive, the light at the end of the tunnel was getting considerably closer!
Gary said:
“Being how aggressive this disease is, they can’t leave one cell alive”
Still a long road ahead Gideon had to face radiation and bone marrow transplants, but it’s not a fast fix and not a chemotherapy-free cure, but it most certainly does give us all hope, and when we have hope it definitely makes us stronger to fight!