Dear Friends,

Our dear pastor Cheryl Kerr and Itamar Santos' 16-year-old son, Gabriel, has had his osteosarcoma cancer return after almost 6 years of health and growth. Cheryl shared the news with our congregation:

“...This past week we learned that our youngest son, Gabriel, cancer has returned.

As many of you know, Gabriel first developed osteosarcoma in May of 2019. He was 9 years old. Bravely, he did the whole cancer treatment journey: port in and out, 2 major surgeries, 6 rounds and 9 months of chemo, and several harrowing unplanned stays on 6W in Boston Children’s Hospital when fevers were too high or white blood cell counts too low. And then, in January 2020, Gabe had his final chemo treatment and we declared victory.

We got 5½ years of peace, freedom, and normalcy.

On Wednesday morning of last week, Gabe texted me that he was feeling a sharp pain in his chest. The nurse looked at it and recommended I take him home and to his pediatrician for a chest x-ray. The x-ray showed us 2 things: that his right lung had suffered a partial collapse (pneumothorax) and that his cancer had returned in the form of new nodules on both lungs. Since then, we have spoken to a ga-zillion doctors and had a ga-zillion new scans, all of which point to the same conclusion that the cancer caused the lung to collapse, which means we need to get into surgery quickly as this is already affecting his body negatively.

What next? Visits to Children’s Hospital and Dana Farber’s Jimmy Fund Clinic for scans and a meeting with our oncology team. There will be surgeries (thoracotomy) and a treatment plan. After this? We simply won’t know until we learn more about what is happening in Gabe’s lungs from the tissue that was removed during surgery.

Friends, I wish I had more answers. What I do know is that as scared as I am, I am deeply comforted to know that I am walking this with the Christ that is this congregation. I know that caring for one another is your greatest and most passionate spiritual practice.”

As the Kerr-Santos family once again starts the journey of Gabe’s cancer treatment, we are starting this fundraiser to help them with all the financial challenges they will face. This fundraiser will help them with travel and flights home for Grace, insurance co-pays, deductibles, medications and supplies for treatment and ongoing care, as well as daily living costs.

Please contribute what you can to support Gabe and his family.

Thank you for your generosity.