Alivia Birdsley's Cancer Battle
Donation protected
A little girl and her family need your help. This is Alivia's story from her parents, Vince and Jill. All donations will go to helping the family with the entire, costly process of kicking cancer's butt.
Welcome. Thank you for visiting. It is with a lot of heartache that we share this story. A few short weeks back, our youngest daughter Alivia (11), was running a temperature of 102 pretty much every evening, just in the evening. That along with obvious weight loss this summer prompted Mom to take her in for a checkup. The doctor was concerned enough to take a blood test and we found out shortly after she was severely anemic. Startled, but glad to have some sort of rationale for her health issues, we were ready to get her healthy as quickly as possible. Next day they asked us to see a gastro specialist, who in turn ordered a colonoscopy and endoscopy. This was just in a matter of days from our original visit. Things quickly began to unravel as each blood test was showing an increasingly alarming trend that Liv was sicker than we thought. Fortunately the scopes didn't show anything, however this led to a CT scan to look even closer at what was going in her little body. She had lost 10 lbs over the course of the summer only weighting 84 pounds - something wasn't right. The CT scan results were the blow that no parent ever wants to get. An irregular grapefruit sized tumor was found in her lower abdomen. Further blood tests and two more scans... and the doctors confirmed our worst fears. Cancer.
As a parent, its very tough to hear that dreaded 6 letter word. We would rather say malignant tumor than cancer. We just hate that word, absolutely, positively, (pardon my French)... F*cking hate it. There. That's out of our system.
So moving on to the next chapter of the story... Liv's journey begins. She will undergo surgery after our consult on Tuesday with the surgical team chosen for her by the good doctors at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. Her surgery will be at Abbott Northwestern Hospital just down the street. We will post more on that soon. The goal is to attempt removal of the tumor, but there is a chance it won't be removed at all and shrunk with chemo, followed by surgery later on. Regardless, Liv will undergo chemo treatment soon after the surgery... how soon we do not yet know. Her life will change forever as will ours and our families. However, cancer will not win. It can't, it won't, and there is nothing else to say.
More about Liv. Her first day of middle school was Tue and was cut short for her MRI and will forever be remembered as the day she was diagnosed. Her 2nd day was missed for a PET scan, which led to a bit of sunshine in the gloom - cancer was not found anywhere else in her body. She loves school and was able to attend Thu/Fri. She is feeling tired but is doing normal 11 year old stuff and still acting her goofy self. She even has her normal sibling battles with Grace. The love between them though has never been more evident. A rainbow within the storm.
We're asking for lots of support and prayers as we embark on this journey because Alivia is just "amazing, more than amazing". Those were her words describing her first full day yesterday because she was able to go to school and even had some kids say kind words to her. She's a caring, loving child that only wants to lead a normal 11 year old life, and thus begins the journey to make certain that's exactly what she'll do.
Love and thanks,
Vince & Jill
Welcome. Thank you for visiting. It is with a lot of heartache that we share this story. A few short weeks back, our youngest daughter Alivia (11), was running a temperature of 102 pretty much every evening, just in the evening. That along with obvious weight loss this summer prompted Mom to take her in for a checkup. The doctor was concerned enough to take a blood test and we found out shortly after she was severely anemic. Startled, but glad to have some sort of rationale for her health issues, we were ready to get her healthy as quickly as possible. Next day they asked us to see a gastro specialist, who in turn ordered a colonoscopy and endoscopy. This was just in a matter of days from our original visit. Things quickly began to unravel as each blood test was showing an increasingly alarming trend that Liv was sicker than we thought. Fortunately the scopes didn't show anything, however this led to a CT scan to look even closer at what was going in her little body. She had lost 10 lbs over the course of the summer only weighting 84 pounds - something wasn't right. The CT scan results were the blow that no parent ever wants to get. An irregular grapefruit sized tumor was found in her lower abdomen. Further blood tests and two more scans... and the doctors confirmed our worst fears. Cancer.
As a parent, its very tough to hear that dreaded 6 letter word. We would rather say malignant tumor than cancer. We just hate that word, absolutely, positively, (pardon my French)... F*cking hate it. There. That's out of our system.
So moving on to the next chapter of the story... Liv's journey begins. She will undergo surgery after our consult on Tuesday with the surgical team chosen for her by the good doctors at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. Her surgery will be at Abbott Northwestern Hospital just down the street. We will post more on that soon. The goal is to attempt removal of the tumor, but there is a chance it won't be removed at all and shrunk with chemo, followed by surgery later on. Regardless, Liv will undergo chemo treatment soon after the surgery... how soon we do not yet know. Her life will change forever as will ours and our families. However, cancer will not win. It can't, it won't, and there is nothing else to say.
More about Liv. Her first day of middle school was Tue and was cut short for her MRI and will forever be remembered as the day she was diagnosed. Her 2nd day was missed for a PET scan, which led to a bit of sunshine in the gloom - cancer was not found anywhere else in her body. She loves school and was able to attend Thu/Fri. She is feeling tired but is doing normal 11 year old stuff and still acting her goofy self. She even has her normal sibling battles with Grace. The love between them though has never been more evident. A rainbow within the storm.
We're asking for lots of support and prayers as we embark on this journey because Alivia is just "amazing, more than amazing". Those were her words describing her first full day yesterday because she was able to go to school and even had some kids say kind words to her. She's a caring, loving child that only wants to lead a normal 11 year old life, and thus begins the journey to make certain that's exactly what she'll do.
Love and thanks,
Vince & Jill
Organizer and beneficiary
Ryan Marincovich
Organizer
Prior Lake, MN
Vince Birdsley
Beneficiary
