hi, my name is Lauren Dirling and Dana Iera is one of my best friends. I’ve started this fundraiser on her behalf.

below is an update from Dana as of June 15

On June 4, 9 year old Luca, from Penn Township, was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. His parents, Nick and Dana, haven’t left his side as he is in Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Let's all be #lucastrong

Below is an update from his mom:

At the beginning of May, Luca began randomly vomiting in the mornings, not even making it out of bed. It was sporadic at first, but then became more frequent. A call to his pediatrician on May 25th led to us keeping a food diary and starting an acid reflux medication, but no exam was done.

On Tuesday May 30th, Luca had began vomiting during the day as well. Luca had no other symptoms, no fever and otherwise felt fine. The pediatrician was able to fit him in for an exam and determined he could be constipated. On the 31st, the vomiting was still happening during the day and I wasn’t convinced he was constipated or had acid reflux. He was taken back to the pediatrician and they did some blood work and glucose testing. Again, we were told could it be constipation and he just really backed up. We tried a suppository, but nothing significant happened, in terms of the vomiting stopping.

On Friday June 2nd we called the pediatrician and said we needed more concrete answers, as we were not convinced of the diagnosis of constipation. They recommended taking Luca to the Emergency Department. My husband took him to Children’s and again left with a constipation diagnosis which was causing nausea. He was prescribed Zofran, which helped and Saturday June 3rd was a great day for Luca, even going to Olive Garden for lunch. But again on Sunday morning, he got sick. Mother’s intuition told me something wasn’t right and I took Luca back to the ER on Sunday June 4th. We were going to be leaving for Disney on Wednesday and I needed to get this figured out before we left.

Thank God for the ER doctor at Children's listening to my concerns, looking at our food diary and the calendar I had marked with instances of being sick. She ordered a brain scan and I got the worst news of my life: Luca had a tumor on his brain stem which was causing him to vomit and be nauseous. It was very likely cancer. I then made the two worst calls I’ll ever make, one to Nick and one to my parents.

Immediately, Luca was ordered a more intricate picture of his brain and then his spine. Due to the length of the MRI and knowing he needed the tumor to be removed immediately, he was sedated and surgery followed on the evening of Monday June 5th. Because of the tumor being on the brain stem, the neurosurgeon told us that there was a good chance Luca may get Posterior Fossa Syndrome, which he does now have. The post op MRI indicated another small spot that hadn’t been seen previously. The team of doctors could not agree whether it was more tumor or just the effect of the surgery, such as a “bruise”. Because there was such disagreement between the team, the decision to extubate Luca was made to start the healing process and his case would be taken to a tumor board for further discussion/analysis with more doctors.

On Sunday June 11th, Luca’s drain from his brain was removed and on Monday June 12th, Luca was moved out of the PICU, but only for a few hours. After being out of there for an hour, the neurosurgeon came to tell us that Luca’s case was presented at the tumor board and unfortunately, there was still disagreement about what the post op MRI spot was. Because of that, they wanted Luca to have another MRI that night to see if there had been any changes. In order to do the scan quickly that night, he had to be moved back to the PICU. Luca had his MRI just a few hours later.

Tuesday morning, the neurosurgeon let us know that unfortunately the MRI didn’t show anything that would indicate whether it was a tumor or not. We had to make the decision to have Luca go back to surgery to remove it (if it was more tumor) or avoid surgery and hope that it wasn’t more tumor. After only a week out of his first brain surgery, we decided we were going to have him go back in to surgery again. By Tuesday at lunch, Luca was sedated and intubated again and prepped for surgery. By dinner, the surgery was complete. The spot in fact was more tumor and after the second surgery, it was all removed. By the evening of June 13, we were told the post op MRI indicated they had got it all and no other spots showed on the MRI.

As of June 15; he is recovering in Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, receiving daily physical therapy.

More updates to come at a later date.