Support Gavin's Journey to Brain Healing

PLEASE PARTNER WITH US TO BRING MORE HEALING TO GAVIN’S BRAIN #GavinStrong

On October 24, 2019, we found ourselves facing a parent’s worst nightmare. We were in the hospital after taking our then 4-year-old son, Gavin, to the ER because he was complaining of headaches for two days.

I want to share the Facebook post we shared to inform our friends and family so that they could join us in praying for a miracle.

This was on October 26th:

“PLEASE join our family in praying for our baby boy Gavin!! We are just putting this out on FB now because we need ALL the prayer warriors to lift him up and we NEED a MIRACLE from our God!

Our son has been in the hospital since Thursday morning...he was complaining of being tired and having headaches. They are still running tons of tests but are sure that he has brain cancer.

We spoke to a neurosurgeon this morning and he says in twenty years he has never seen a case like Gavin's. They are still looking for the cause and still need to do more scans to find out if it's anywhere else in his body and what exact brain cancer it may be. He had a seizure last night. It's not looking good. We just want to be honest. We are so broken, we just need powerful prayer right now. Still, we know and have faith in a massive God and we know HE can take this away. He is the ultimate Healer and we trust that God loves our boy even more than we do. Please tell everyone you know to lift up Gavin to the Father. Love you all!”

Pretty soon we had thousands of people all over the world praying for my son! In total, we ended up spending about 4 1/2 months in the hospital with Gavin in the ICU for most of that time. He went through six weeks of radiation, two intubations, a couple of surgeries, and he suffered a massive stroke. He was on steroids and so many medications that were helping the swelling in his brain but also were eating away at his muscles. He could hardly talk, couldn’t walk, and was being fed through a tube. He basically became a 50 lbs baby again.

We didn’t know what each day would bring, so we wanted to spend as much time with him as we could. My husband ended up taking three months off of work, and I quit my job to take care of him full-time.

God definitely provided for us in such an amazing way during that time. He used people’s generosity to allow us to nurse Gavin back to health. I wanted to share that we DID end up getting our miracle! We were released from the hospital in mid-February 2022, two weeks before the pandemic shut down. We started treating Gavin naturally at home and continued all the therapies. He had to relearn how to crawl, and then he learned how to walk again, and I’m so grateful that today he is running… this was a dream come true! Fast forward to 5 years later, he can swim, jump on the trampoline, go to school, and do many things other children can do.

This brings me to why we are setting up a new GoFundMe and asking others to partner with us in his continued brain healing journey:

Although Gavin has experienced a lot of healing on the cancer side, he does still face many challenges on a daily basis. We believe this is due to the massive stroke he suffered, the epilepsy he takes medication for, and also the radiation they did on his ENTIRE brain. We want to be vulnerable and share some of the challenges he still faces:

* He still has a g-tube (feeding tube we use to give him his medication and healthy formula to keep the cancer away. He can eat by mouth as well, but became super picky after the hospital and he won’t eat healthy foods, so we keep it in for nutrition and medication).

* He has epilepsy and without medication, he suffers from very intense seizures.

* He can’t wipe himself when he goes to the restroom (still struggles with fine motor skills).

* He can’t brush his teeth or shower alone without someone’s help and support.

* He’s very behind academically from the damage the stroke did (4th grade but Kindergarten level).

* He can’t ride a bike or scooter well on his own.

* He has some speech delays and has a hard time processing his emotions at times because of the damage done to his frontal lobe from the stroke.

I share all of this because these are things most 9-year-olds don’t struggle with and we want our boy to have the chance to live as normal of a life as possible! We want him to thrive, catch up in school, and be able to live on his own and get a job one day…

So we started seeking help and answers. That’s when we came across Brain Health Hawaii. They offer something called TMS:

TMS

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique used to treat various psychiatric and neurological conditions. It involves applying recurring magnetic pulses to brain regions, typically the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, to modulate cortical excitability.

Dr. Keifer and his team believe Gavin is the perfect candidate for these treatments. He has treated many children before and has seen incredible healing - some have been able to catch up in school and go on to live better lives. He is the only doctor who has given us some hope. He believes these treatments can help cure Gavin’s epilepsy and be able to get him off his seizure medication, that would be huge!

Unfortunately, insurance doesn’t cover children’s treatments. Not even his Medicaid will help. Overall, the doctor wants Gavin to have about 60-80 treatments which will bring the out-of-pocket cost to be around $19,000.

If you feel led to partner in this brain healing journey, we appreciate any little bit. We believe God led us to try these treatments, and are confident He will provide, He always does! We are going to start off with the goal of raising $10,000 to cover half of his treatments. 

These donations are tax-deductible and you will get updates and be able to be part of this amazing boy’s journey! God is faithful and we are sure He has big plans for Gavin! We hope to spread the word and awareness about TMS to many people who can also benefit from these treatments but may not be aware that they even exist.

We are excited for this journey, and we appreciate all the love and prayers!

Love,

Dave and Raquel, Gavin’s mom and dad

Here is Gavin’s FB page if you want to join and get frequent updates on his treatments:

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1AoTWAJYkd/?mibextid=wwXIfr