Support Graysen's Fight Against Cancer

Our kids would never ask for a penny but we know they will need help during this journey with Graysen and their fight against cancer.

Dad Justin is a Dallas Firefighter and Mom Megan is a High School math teacher and softball coach.

Update on Gray 8/29 :

We came back to continue her chemotherapy plans and pathology result came back from her surgery. Her doctor told us that they found another tumor is her lower lobe. A Rhabdomyoblastic tumor was present (essentially telling us that her cancer was on its way to being a type 3 PPB, and it could have grew within the week between her PET scan and surgery date). Wild.

It doesn’t change her survival rate or her chemotherapy timeline, just something they will have to keep an eye on with scans.

When doing surgery, they also found that part of her tumor had broken off and was just hanging out in her chest cavity, so now they have to do radiation in 12 weeks or so. This is because they do not know what all it came into contact with, so they want to make sure they kill any cells it may have left behind. After these next 4 cycles(12weeks), she will have another CT scan and a PET scan to make sure they are aware of the areas that they will need to target with radiation.

Today was/is heavy. What we thought was a clear path to remission, now is cloudy and unplanned. We thought we beat it, and the rest of the journey was killing the cancer cells surgery can’t see/feel. I questioned, how much more can her body take. How much more could we carry, hasn’t she been through enough…

But God..

Justin is out running a couple of errands for his station crew and myself, before Gray starts chemo, and he came across this sign. A true sign from God, the timing and message that we truly needed during this heartbreaking news. He is not done yet, and although the road is unpaved by our standards, it is exactly what He has already mapped out.

God you continue to be so good, even in our doubt, even in our unknown, and especially in our heartache; You are so faithful.

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Update 8/14 : Surgery Day

She’s out!

All good news!! In fact, the best case scenario!!

They only took out the lower lobe of the right lung, a part of her diaphragm (but they were able to repair it) and the inner lining of the chest wall.

She is tumor free!

God is so good! Prayer is so powerful! He is so so faithful!

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Here’s their story…in Megan’s own words

Long post for the very long journey we’re about to start

June 15, 2025 about 7:50 am, our world stopped. I do not know how else to describe the feeling you have when you get told your two year old, the joy of our lives, our energy bunny, is about to endure the battle of her life.

Saturday, June 14th, Ricki and I took Gray to Gun Barrel City ER because she has having trouble breathing, was lethargic yet with no signs of a viral infection. They took such good care of Gray and were gentle with her but were worried. Her breathing was not normal, her blood labs were not right and her chest X-Ray came back showing fluid taking up the majority of the right lung. They immediately thought pneumonia, and put her on heated high flow oxygen and careflighted us to Children’s Plano.

Sunday, June 15th.

We got to Children’s Plano around 1:15 am and they immediately started assessing Gray. Ultrasounds, Chest X-Ray, Urine Sample, Blood Samples, nose swabs to test for viral infection, another IV and eventually a CT Scan. Trying to figure out what caused the pneumonia. Ultrasound showed fluid, X-Ray now shows the ENTIRE right lung is full of fluid, but nose swabs come back all negative; so what is causing the pneumonia?

Around 4:00 am, we got a CT scan that eventually showed the doctors that this might be more than just pneumonia that was making it hard for her to breathe, essentially collapsing her right lung.

At 7:50 am we were told Graysen has a mass on her right lung and that we would talk to oncology as soon as we got transported to Dallas Children’s.

We were told Graysen has cancer. Our world stopped.

Once we got to the PICU at Children’s Dallas, more test were taken, more blood was drawn and another CT scan was taken. Confirming it all. No pneumonia, it was cancer. And all the fluid showing on her X-Ray was blood from the tumor.

On Tuesday, June 10th, I took Graysen to the Mabank Park at the pavilion. A place she loves to go when the weather is beautiful and she gets to go down the “big slide”. She was climbing up an obstacle she has climbed on time and time again, so I looked away for a minute and next thing I know I see Gray on the ground crying, not at the exit of the slide but underneath the beginning. She had fallen and she was on her belly. After hugs and assessing for wounds, she seemed fine and played more and got to go play with nana that same night. Little did we know that her accident led us to her diagnosis. Her fall made the mass in her chest to start bleeding, which then led us to find the tumor that was taking over her body. I see God in this day. God knew we needed to seek help for our sweet Gray.

June 15th around 3:30 pm, Graysen has a chest tube put in to drain the blood that was filling her lung cavity, eventually helping her breathe more comfortably. She is still on heated high flow oxygen to help her breathe but she was doing better and didn’t need as much air flow.

Monday, June 16th at 7:30 am, they took Gray back for surgery. She had a port put in for chemotherapy and they took a sample of her mass to figure out what type of cancer we are fighting. And now we wait. 3-5 day until the results come back. 3-5 days to help our little girl get as comfortable as she can be, because she doesn’t understand what is happening to her little body.

Thursday, June 19th we got told she has type 2 Pleuropulmonary Blastoma.

So what does that mean.. more scans and blood work to make sure it hasn’t spread, and we start chemo to fight this thing. God is not done and neither is Gray.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out and showered us with so much love, support, food, hugs. I cannot express the gratitude I have for our circle and community. They say it takes a village to raise a kiddo, well they weren’t wrong, because it is going to take our village to help gray fight this. She is brave. She is a fighter. She is a warrior. She is not alone in this fight. God has already shown Himself in this and we believe His presence is here and that He has his hand on her.

#GodsGotGraysen