Abby

This is Abby
(with her brother Ian)

She's my niece's 10 year old little girl and she has a rare form of pediatric lung cancer. There is no cure. When I found out that September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month I thought I'd let you all know about it. Cancer is a terrible disease that affects everyone. I know of no family that hasn't had someone either presently dealing with it, or has dealt with it in the past. Sadly, it's a part of the human state now. And, even more sadly, Abby is a little girl who should have a full life ahead of her.

To give you some idea of Abby's condition:

We found out that Abby was born with a rare disorder,C.C.P.M., Congenital Cystic Pulmonary malformation. In most cases this type of cyst is large enough to see and is discovered very early on in pregnancy(between 7-34 weeks gestation). It is removed after birth and the child is fine. This is not the case for Abby. She was born a tumor that was small enough to go undetected and until 2 years ago, didn't cause any problems. The asthma that we have been treating since she was 3 was actually this disease. C.C.P.M. is normally removed and there are no further problems. In even more rare cases,like Abby,when C.C.P.M. is not found and treated it can then become Bronchoalveolar Carcinoma or B.A.C. (that's what the doctors call it). In order for B.A.C. to appear, C.C.P.M. has to be present. B.A.C. in children appears favorable,meaning they should only need surgery to cure it. However, that is not the case for Abby. Here is where the complications come in. Our oncologist, Dr. Rapkin, had all the pathology samples sent to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology ,AFIP, in Washington,D.C. for review and they found that the larger mass is actually another form of cancer called Mucinous Adenocarcinoma. This is more aggressive than B.A.C. Meaning that this one mass has moved from a stage 1 non aggressive type of cancer to a stage 4 more aggressive type. It has started to infiltrate the surrounding tissue of the lung. This infiltration was found to be minor, in the beginning stage.But the cancer has spread to the right lung resulting in 19 tumors. Abby has undergone several surgeries since April,one in which her lower left lung was removed and in October she began intensive chemo treatments The road ahead is long and confusing for us all. Abby is a trooper. Her smile reminds us that God is good. He is the one who holds our future and our hope.

You can visit Abby's CaringBridge site at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/abbywilson. The medical bills to care for Abby are huge. If you'd like to help out in any way, big or small, mail a check or money order to:

Abby Wilson Medical Fund
PO Box 157
Gray, GA 31032-0157