Support Gav’s journey to defeating non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

One of our own, Gavin Weerasinghe, has recently been diagnosed with primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma, a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

It has come as a massive shock to everyone, Gavin at only 30 years old with a young family, was previously fit and healthy with no real health concerns. By the time the tumour in his chest was discovered, it was so large that it was blocking his heart from properly functioning and had put him into heart failure. Gavin is currently on a long, uphill battle to recovery with numerous cycles of chemotherapy, surgeries and rehabilitation on the horizon and we would be grateful for your support during his journey.

On the 8th of July Gavin was rushed to hospital with chest pains. The initial diagnosis was fluid around his heart preventing it from beating properly. After an unsuccessful attempt to drain the fluid, they took Gavin to theatre for an open surgery. Unexpectedly, following the administration of anaesthetic, Gavin’s heart stopped and he went into cardiac arrest. He was resuscitated for 8 minutes and required a heart bypass machine, mechanical ventilator for his breathing and kidney dialysis to keep him alive. What started off as straight forward 45-minute procedure, ended up being a complicated 8-hour surgery where the tumour was first identified. The tumour was too big and complex to remove during the surgery. At this point the doctors had told Gavin’s family his chances of survival were bleak.

A few days later the results of biopsy came back as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer that tends to respond well to chemotherapy which was somewhat of a positive diagnosis given the situation. Gavin was transferred to The Alfred Hospital, a specialist Oncology hospital and chemotherapy was started immediately. A full CT scan revealed the cancer had thankfully not spread anywhere else in his body, but that it was extremely large and would require numerous rounds of chemotherapy and further surgeries with a long and tough journey to recovery.

Gavin has made excellent progress and has been weaned off the heart bypass machine and currently remains stable on ICU. However, this is only the first step of a long road. At difficult times like this, we as a club would like to come together and find a way to support our friend Gavin. We would be grateful for any donations, big or small, which may help alleviate some of the stress and allow Gavin and his family to focus on his recovery and defeating cancer.

Buckley Ridges Cricket Club Committee.