Ondre' Blogs

ABOUT ABIGAIL

Abigail is the fifth child in the Goss Family. Her siblings are Mary (11), Hyrum (10), Elisabeth (8) and Rachel (5). Everyone loves Abigail. Her grandparents adore her.

By the end of 2010, Abigail had not been feeling well for a couple of weeks. On Saturday, January 15, we noticed a lump on Abigail’s lower neck near her shoulder. We took her to the urgent care and were told to take her to a children’s hospital for blood work to determine what it might be. After drawing blood (which Abigail HATED), x-rays of chest and abdomen, another IV, and a CT scan, the doctors believed it to be a pediatric cancer called Neuroblastoma. The tumor started on her left kidney/adrenal gland and worked its way up through her torso, behind her heart, and surrounded her aorta artery. It had pushed all her organs over and collapsed a lung in it’s aggressive growth. To see a massive tumor taking over the abdomen of your child is a dreadful thing. To hear the doctor say “It’s cancer.” is a parent’s nightmare.

She was diagnosed at 19 months old with Stage 4, high-risk, myc-n amplified, poor shimada, unfavorable histology. All the bad markers. Her cancer was metastatic, meaning it had spread all over her body. Numerous lesions were found in all the main bones (skull, collar bone, ribs, pelvic, femur, etc), and her bone marrow was also filled with cancerous cells.

Abigail has had 5 rounds of chemotherapy, has started a non-toxic alternative cancer treatment called Protocel, and has had her tumor successfully resected. She is currently NED (No evidence of disease)!!! Her response was, as one oncologist put it, “much better than average, much better than average.” He said that out of his 35 years of experience, maybe 5% of NB cases have had results like hers. We pray that she will be able to keep the cancer from coming back.