Gianna is a bright, beautiful, bubbly, intelligent and amazing seven year old! I could go on and on about her. She does amazing in school, always gets her homework done and stresses if its not perfect. She’s very critical on herself when it comes to school. Aside from school, Gianna is the most well behaved little girl. She is loving, caring and has a heart of gold. Her best friend in the entire world is her little brother Brayson. Brayson and Gianna are inseparable.

When Gianna was three years old she started getting chronic migraines. These migraines made her so sick, it would often cause her to vomit. The migraines typically last about three days, so she has to be in a quiet dark room. As she got older they became more frequent and she now gets them about every two weeks. Because Gianna is at risk of having the same brain disorder that her father has, the doctors have instructed us to only give her Tylenol because it’s not a blood thinning medication and will keep the risk of bleeding and hemorrhaging low. However the Tylenol doesn’t do much for her pain. We attempted to get her a MRI three times, and all three times were unsuccessful due to her reaction to the anesthesia. In mid December, 2015 she was finally able to have a successful MRI. Three weeks later I received a phone call that has completely devastated and forever changed our lives. After getting this phone call I had to make the phone call to my husband to tell him that our precious baby girl has what he has and she will need surgery. This has been a tough road for us. Not only because our daughter has this but my husband has it too. He just had his first brain surgery less than one year ago and now we have to go through it again only with our little girl. Aside from hearing this news, delivering this to Gianna was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do. Her reaction to this news is something I will never forget. She’s a smart girl and it makes things harder because she knew exactly what we were saying since she has already watched this process with her dad.

The correct name of what Gianna was diagnosed with is called Familial Cerebral Cavernous Malformation (CCM1). Her MRI results discovered she has four cavernomas. One of the cavernomas measures 2 inches and is located in the frontal lobe of her brain. There is an additional cavernoma pressed up against the 2 inch cavernoma. She has two more cavernomas that are located in areas that are too high of a risk to remove at this time. The Surgeon said because of the size of the large cavernoma if we were to leave it and it were to bleed it would have catastrophic results. It has already bled some which has caused her the Chronic migraines. Gianna’s Neurosurgeon has scheduled her to have surgery to remove the two inch cavenoma and the small one next to it, within the next few weeks. She will need to be in the hospital for about one week, if everything goes well.

So far our portion of her medical bills for just the tests they have ran prior to surgery are over $4,000.00. We have set a goal for $4,000.00 to help go towards the medical bills. This is a small portion of what we will have to pay but it will help us tremendously! Unfortunately because this is a rare genetic form of the Cavernous Malformation, there is not enough research to get treatment to prevent or cure this disease/disorder. This surgery will ONLY remove the two cavernomas in her frontal lobe, she will be living and dealing with this for the rest of her life. The symptoms that the cavernomas cause are, strokes, seizures, migraines, hemorrhages and death. She will most likely have to be on anticonvulsion medications for the rest of her life. Any donations or support is greatly appreciated. Thank you.