November 20, 2021 was the worst day of our lives. Toby hadn't been feeling or looking himself and after he was told by his pediatrician he was fine our gut told us he wasn't. We ended up at a pediatric urgent care where the doctor knew something was off and wasn't just allergies, as we had suspected. She discovered through a chest x-ray something and directed us to go get a cat scan asap. From their findings we were told we need to go to CHOP or another children's hospital. Without hesitation we said CHOP due to its extraordinary reputation and we are so glad we did. Toby was immediately taken to CHOP via ambulance around 1am, November 21st, where we were greeted with a team of doctors in the Pediatric ICU. The worst was obviously going through our minds and sadly was confirmed when only oncologists began examining him.
We were told with what they know and have seen in their years of experience it was only a few things but all were cancer BUT all were treatable. Toby and our family endured some of the most awful days in the PICU between pet scans, blood work, life threatening biopsies, because of the location of his tumor, ECHO'S, etc.. After being at CHOP for over a week we finally got his diagnosis of Burkitt Lymphoma, a B cell non-hodgkins lymphoma. This is the same cancer all the doctors knew it was but couldn't confirm until his biopsy did. This is how brilliant these doctors are. They knew exactly what he had without even being told by a test. As soon as he had his diagnosis he started treatment that day. He went through 4 5-7 day in patient treatments, each getting harder on his body as he got weaker. He fought so hard and through all the pain, mentally and physically, the hair loss, an infection, 9 spinal taps that on February 17th he completed his last round of chemo and his little body can heal.
He has been doing remarkably well since we got the news that he was in remission. We have had our scares but all seems to have turned out good. CHOP is extra cautious with everything they do and how they treat our son. Without the Philly team and our local Voorhees team, our son would not be here today. We are forever in debt and grateful for their care and will always do anything we can to give back to them so that they can continue helping other families who get a similar diagnosis.
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