Fight for Sawyer Davidson
Donation protected
We are starting this fund to help the Davidson Family with significant expenses they will incur while fighting Sawyer's recurring brain cancer Medulloblastoma.
On Tuesday, April 21, 2015, after experiencing symptoms for three weeks, Sawyer was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He had surgery to remove it on Monday, April 27. On Thursday, April 30, we learned that the tumor is a medulloblastoma, the most aggressive form. The tumor had likely been growing for some time, but had just gotten large enough to start producing symptoms. Sawyer and his family endured weeks of radiation at MD Anderson in Houston, chemotherapy treatment, extensive therapy to combat the deficits from the surgery, and hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy. Last week, Sawyer's MRI showed recurrence of medulloblastoma with a secondary tumor. So thus begins another battle with this awful cancer. Please give what you can. Every dollar counts. Below is the latest journal of Sawyer's fight:
At this point, here is the plan: Kim, Sawyer and I will be flying into Jacksonville on Tuesday for a 1015 appointment on Wednesday with a neurosurgeon at Univ of FL (Dr Pincus). At 11am we have an appointment with the neuro-oncology team to discuss the trial and the treatment schedule. I will be leaving on Monday in my truck and driving to Gainesville/Jacksonville, FL and will pick them up at the airport. The Social worker at UF was great and already set us up with a hotel room. Here is the schedule of events as I know them (I will know more exact information following our appointment next Wednesday).
Wednesday: 1015 neurosurgery. In order to be a part of this study (immunotherapy), they need a tissue sample, a biopsy, at least - another gross total resection if it can be done safely. His local recurrence is very near his brain stem, sothis makes a total resection a bit of a challenge to say the least as the complications can be very severe if the brain stem is compromised. They will use the tissue that they collect later in treatment - I will discuss the details later.
1115 Wednesday is the appointment with neurooncology. We will have a better idea of schedule, travel, and timeline following this appointment.
Thursday of next week, Sawyer will have another craniotomy (this is major brain surgery...again). However, given that he has a pseudomeningocele,this was the next step if HBOT didn't help. Furthermore, his brain should not be as traumatized this time as there is already a path to the local recurrence to at least grab a biopsy of that tissue. Obviously, best case scenario is if the surgeon is capable of safely resecting both tumors that were evident in his last MRI, however, that will remain in question until next week as his metastasis is located in his fine visual portion of his brain and it may not be worth getting. We are hopeful that the most appropriate decision will be made!
He will obviously spend a night in the PICU and then hopefully discharged within a few days. However, we will stay in Gainesville for another week recovering in a hotel room somewhere in Gainesville. Appx. One week following surgery, Sawyer will return to the hospital to have a couple large catheters placed in his neck by interventional radiology that will be used to harvest stem cells that will be used to create the (immunotherapy) vaccine.
The way this treatment is supposed to work (in very general terms) is they break the RNA from the tumor tissue (the cellular fingerprint of his tumor) and grow more (amplify) RNA, ultimately, this RNA will be mixed with his stem cells/T-cells to teach them who they need to attack. (Boot camp for the immune system). This approach is very novel, somewhat new, and certainly unproven.
So, back to the schedule. We return to Fort Worth after the stem cells collection where he will resume chemotherapy in order to keep the cancer from spreading and growing (hopefully). The vaccine takes appx 10-12 weeks to create and that is the time we hope the chemo will hold this disease in check. Sawyer will need to endure another round of stem cell collection during his time in Fort Worth that will be used to kick-start his immune system during the final stages of treatment. We are very happy and thankful that Dr Murray (Cooks Children's oncologist) was able to get approval from the hospital to treat Sawyer during our time in Fort Worth.
When the vaccine is complete, we will allow sawyer to recover from the induction chemo given in Fort Worth, then we will return to Gainesville for a huge dose of chemo meant to completely knock out his bone marrow...this is a critical step to inspire his immune system to attack the tumor with the re-introduced t-cells. We will likely be in Gainesville for 30-45 days for this part of treatment as he will be hospitalized until his blood counts recover and they will administer two doses of the vaccine.
This treatment plan is certainly not for the faint of heart, however, it is a very different modality than what he has already received and therefore, we believe this is his best chance at healing.
We will again be spending a better part of the summer out-of-town, however, after discussing our limited options with several of the leading authorities on medulloblastoma, they seem to be in agreement that this is Sawyer's best option right now. I spent 45min on the phone with Dr Giles Robinson and then another 30 min on the phone with Dr Theodore Johnson in the last 24hours and through the politics of academic medicine. Both were very excited about the research being done by Dr Duane Mitchell at the Univ of FL. I apologize for the choppy flow of this update.
On Tuesday, April 21, 2015, after experiencing symptoms for three weeks, Sawyer was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He had surgery to remove it on Monday, April 27. On Thursday, April 30, we learned that the tumor is a medulloblastoma, the most aggressive form. The tumor had likely been growing for some time, but had just gotten large enough to start producing symptoms. Sawyer and his family endured weeks of radiation at MD Anderson in Houston, chemotherapy treatment, extensive therapy to combat the deficits from the surgery, and hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy. Last week, Sawyer's MRI showed recurrence of medulloblastoma with a secondary tumor. So thus begins another battle with this awful cancer. Please give what you can. Every dollar counts. Below is the latest journal of Sawyer's fight:
At this point, here is the plan: Kim, Sawyer and I will be flying into Jacksonville on Tuesday for a 1015 appointment on Wednesday with a neurosurgeon at Univ of FL (Dr Pincus). At 11am we have an appointment with the neuro-oncology team to discuss the trial and the treatment schedule. I will be leaving on Monday in my truck and driving to Gainesville/Jacksonville, FL and will pick them up at the airport. The Social worker at UF was great and already set us up with a hotel room. Here is the schedule of events as I know them (I will know more exact information following our appointment next Wednesday).
Wednesday: 1015 neurosurgery. In order to be a part of this study (immunotherapy), they need a tissue sample, a biopsy, at least - another gross total resection if it can be done safely. His local recurrence is very near his brain stem, sothis makes a total resection a bit of a challenge to say the least as the complications can be very severe if the brain stem is compromised. They will use the tissue that they collect later in treatment - I will discuss the details later.
1115 Wednesday is the appointment with neurooncology. We will have a better idea of schedule, travel, and timeline following this appointment.
Thursday of next week, Sawyer will have another craniotomy (this is major brain surgery...again). However, given that he has a pseudomeningocele,this was the next step if HBOT didn't help. Furthermore, his brain should not be as traumatized this time as there is already a path to the local recurrence to at least grab a biopsy of that tissue. Obviously, best case scenario is if the surgeon is capable of safely resecting both tumors that were evident in his last MRI, however, that will remain in question until next week as his metastasis is located in his fine visual portion of his brain and it may not be worth getting. We are hopeful that the most appropriate decision will be made!
He will obviously spend a night in the PICU and then hopefully discharged within a few days. However, we will stay in Gainesville for another week recovering in a hotel room somewhere in Gainesville. Appx. One week following surgery, Sawyer will return to the hospital to have a couple large catheters placed in his neck by interventional radiology that will be used to harvest stem cells that will be used to create the (immunotherapy) vaccine.
The way this treatment is supposed to work (in very general terms) is they break the RNA from the tumor tissue (the cellular fingerprint of his tumor) and grow more (amplify) RNA, ultimately, this RNA will be mixed with his stem cells/T-cells to teach them who they need to attack. (Boot camp for the immune system). This approach is very novel, somewhat new, and certainly unproven.
So, back to the schedule. We return to Fort Worth after the stem cells collection where he will resume chemotherapy in order to keep the cancer from spreading and growing (hopefully). The vaccine takes appx 10-12 weeks to create and that is the time we hope the chemo will hold this disease in check. Sawyer will need to endure another round of stem cell collection during his time in Fort Worth that will be used to kick-start his immune system during the final stages of treatment. We are very happy and thankful that Dr Murray (Cooks Children's oncologist) was able to get approval from the hospital to treat Sawyer during our time in Fort Worth.
When the vaccine is complete, we will allow sawyer to recover from the induction chemo given in Fort Worth, then we will return to Gainesville for a huge dose of chemo meant to completely knock out his bone marrow...this is a critical step to inspire his immune system to attack the tumor with the re-introduced t-cells. We will likely be in Gainesville for 30-45 days for this part of treatment as he will be hospitalized until his blood counts recover and they will administer two doses of the vaccine.
This treatment plan is certainly not for the faint of heart, however, it is a very different modality than what he has already received and therefore, we believe this is his best chance at healing.
We will again be spending a better part of the summer out-of-town, however, after discussing our limited options with several of the leading authorities on medulloblastoma, they seem to be in agreement that this is Sawyer's best option right now. I spent 45min on the phone with Dr Giles Robinson and then another 30 min on the phone with Dr Theodore Johnson in the last 24hours and through the politics of academic medicine. Both were very excited about the research being done by Dr Duane Mitchell at the Univ of FL. I apologize for the choppy flow of this update.
Organizer and beneficiary
Jimmy Phu
Organizer
Keller, TX
John Davidson
Beneficiary
