Posted on 08/14/2010 5:28:09 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A two year old Indiana boy is fighting a big battle after an extremely rare diagnosis. What his family originally thought was a summer cold turned out to be lung cancer.
A two-year-old Indiana boy is fighting a big battle after an extremely rare diagnosis. What his family originally thought was a summer cold turned out to be lung cancer.
Now he's beating the odds along with the support of an entire community.
For Kale Galloway and his parents Doug and Jessica, trips to the doctor have become so common place that the two year old has grown used to the routine.
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Kale's life began to change during a family camping trip over the 4th of July. What started as a cough, soon led to a fever. Doug and Jessica brought Kale into the doctor, but after a week the medicine still wasn't working.
"As a parent of four boys you know something is not right," Jessica Galloway said.
Jessica and Troy decided to take Kale from their home in Waynetown to a Lafayette hospital. During the visit they took an x-ray of his chest, which showed just one clear lung. His left one was completely blocked by a white mass on the x-ray. Kale was sick and coughing because he was essentially using just one lung.
"It's a parent's worst nightmare," Jessica said.
They rushed Kale to the Emergency Room at Riley Hospital for Children, that's when Dr. Troy Quigg took a look at a CAT scan, and saw a tumor that he'd never imagined diagnosing in a two year old.
"It clearly looked like, you know, a lung cancer," said Dr. Quigg.
Kale was suffering from a lung cancer known as Pleuropulmonary Blastoma. The term rare doesn't begin to describe it.
"That has only been reported about 600 times ever in the medical literature worldwide," Quigg said.
Though it's rare, doctor's know that in order to treat Pleuropulmonary Blastoma you need to remove it with surgery, which has a success rate of 40 to 50%. The trouble is Kale's tumor is nearly the size of a softball and is also surrounding the blood vessels connected to his heart, meaning they can't operate until they can shrink it. The trouble is, chemotherapy is also has a success rate of just 40-50%. That meant Kale faces the equivalent of two coin flips.
"You just don't expect for anything like that to happen to your little boy," Jessica said.
Expected or not, in just four weeks, Kale has now undergone his fifth round of chemotherapy, and not only is he handling the pain, a look at his last x-ray shows the tumor is shrinking.
"He's actually less symptomatic than he was when he came to us," Dr. Quigg said.
"Miracles never cease to happen," Jessica said.
"We've got a long road, but we've had an awfully good first few laps," Doug said.
Mom and Dad will tell you their positive outlook is thanks to the courage of their quiet little patient, and the support of too many people to mention.
"We have a phenomenal community, a phenomenal amount of friends and people across the country praying for Kale," Doug said. "And we believe that those prayers are being answered."
Kale has one more week of chemotherapy scheduled before he will undergo a second CAT scan to determine whether or not the tumor is small enough for surgery.
For much more about Kale and his progress go to: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/kalegalloway
Family and friends will host a fundraiser at the Waynetown pool tomorrow (Saturday August 14th) for little Kale. There will be a pool party with hot dogs and baked goods, along with raffle prizes, games and bracelets for sale to raise money for Kale. The event will run from 8 p.m. until midnight.
Pray for the little guy.
Stay strong kid.
Wow! That sucks!
It’s bad enough when a kid just gets sick. This would be unimaginable! I hope they can all stay strong, and the doctors can get rid of the Cancer.
God Bless the Little Guy and his family. I hope that his cancer is cured.
Prayers up for the poor kid.
The doctors and staff at Riley are first rate and moved heaven and earth to save my granddaughter.
Please pray for this sick little boy with cancer and for my daughter and her husband as the suffer through the loss of their little girl.
O wonder why they didn’t take him to St. Jude’s? My 5 yr. old Great-Nephew was treated there for a Wilm’s tumor and it required the removal of one of his kidneys. He had chemo for several months, but is doing very well now. He’s been cancer-free for a few months now, and they’ll have to go back in another couple of months to get checked, but his prognosis is great.
God Bless your daughter and son-in-law, and you, as well. It’s so hard to lose kids so young.
Prayers up.
“What his family originally thought was a summer cold turned out to be lung cancer.”
Same thing happened to my son’s best friend. Cancer was discovered, same size, same place, but not the same type, when they x-ray’d for possible bronchitis/pneumonia. We just thought he had a very bad cold.
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