[Cracked Sidewalks] Happy Thanksgiving

[CrackedSidewalksSays]

Happy Thanksgiving

Written by: noreply@blogger.com (Rob Lowe)

This post is long overdue.  Today is a day where we take time to be grateful for the many blessings in our lives.  And while I do not typically engage in personal discussions, I hope you'll humor this post today.

On March 31st, 2010, some dear friends found out their two year old son had less than a 30% chance of survival.  Liam Kelly had been diagnosed with the rare condition of stage 4 Neuroblastoma.  If you have children, family, or a soul, you probably appreciate how devastating this diagnosis was for the Kelly family.

Liam has now gone through eighteen grueling months of treatment including six cycles of chemotherapy, major abdominal surgery, four stem cell harvests, two stem cell (bone marrow) transplants, weeks of radiation, and finally six months of an experimental antibody therapy.  In short, more pain and suffering than anyone should ever have to endure.  However, there is a happy ending here, because Liam has completed his treatment and was declared cancer free.

Liam's dad is a proud Marquette alum (and dedicated hoops fanatic).  When this first started to unfold, I reached out to Mike Broeker to see if there was anything that the athletic department did in situations like these.  Here are some of the things I am thankful for.

• Broeker immediately contacted Buzz, who called Liam's dad the very next day and wanted to come visit in the hospital.  The hospital visit never worked out, but Liam's parents were particularly touched by Buzz's call.  I'm thankful that Buzz was so responsive and makes those types of calls.
• Mike kept in touch with the Kelly family off and on during much of their treatment.  He would check in to see how things were going and sent a care package or two.  In addition, prior to a Benefit Dinner to raise money for Liam's ongoing care, Broeker was nice enough to get three signed MU basketballs (by JFB and Lazar) donated for the auction.  I'm thankful that Mike Broeker finds the time to follow up and help out an MU family.
• Also prior to the auction, Tim helped reach out to Marquette legend (and the coolest radio announcer in the business) Jim McIlvaine.  Mac donated signed pictures, a rookie card, and other memorabilia, for which I am thankful.
• Finally, I'm thankful for Cracked Sidewalks contributor muwarrior92, who donated a signed jersey from (Super Bowl winning) quarterback Eli Manning.

All of these things were done without any expectation of public notification or gratitude, but today they get thanks.  I'm thankful that the Marquette community supports its own in times of need. 

And most especially, I'm thankful that Liam is cancer free.

If you want to read more about Liam, you can see their story at the family's website.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  We Are Marquette.

http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2011/11/happy-thanksgiving.html

[downtown85]

Nice story! As a father of a child with a rare, life-threatening disease, I am thankful for every day I can spend with him and I am thankful for MU Basketball as a distraction from the daily battle.  It's nice to see Buzz, Broeker, and Co. are more than about basketball and that Buzz has time for such things (Buzz's bunch etc.) 

[Tulsa Warrior]

Thanks for sharing the story.  It puts the struggles we go through in context.  My son has had ongoing health issues -- lots of test and painful treatments to get him back to health.  The fight continues but there is more hope now than four years ago.  Along the way former Marquette assistant coaches Tod Kowalczyk and Brian Wardle have been in touch to offer encouragement.

[brewcity77]

Great story, thanks for sharing. My thoughts are with the Kelly family.

[Hoopaloop]

Great story, thanks for sharing. My thoughts are with the Kelly family.

+ a million.  Thoughts and prayers to this young boy and the family.  Awesome to see Buzz and the program help this family out.

Good to see that Marquette hater, Chicos, helping Marquette folks out.  (Did that need to be in teal?  The part about the hater, not the part about helping folks out)

He helped our foundation out with a David Ortiz signed jersey a few months back which was a big hit at our auction. 

Good to see Marquette people helping out other Marquette people. 

[Henry Sugar]

Sorry to interrupt basketball talk, but there's an update on this story and it's not good.  I'm putting this out there in as many spots as possible (FB, twitter, and now here).  Your prayers are appreciated, especially today.  Brain surgery at 10 am.

http://www.liamsgang.com/2012/02/liams-update/

[GGGG]

Man...that blog post made me cry.  Prayers will be going out all morning.

[garekis]

Thanks for this update.  Thoughts and prayers for that tough little guy, his family, and his doctors right now.

[MU B2002]

http://www.liamsgang.com/2012/02/liams-update/

My corporate web filter classified that website as 'Porn" and would not let me open the link.  Can someone cut and paste?

[SoCalwarrior]

Liam’s Update0

FEBRUARY 6TH, 2012WILLLIAM
As many of you may have heard by now, Liam has had a set back in his recover as the Neuroblastoma has return and is currently in his brain.   As we type, we are working with our primary team in Chicago and are also consulting with some folks in New York City on what options we may have.  We have a tough battle on our hands, but we made it once and will make it again.

Just a little background on the past few days since everyone is asking how this happened so fast.  Liam has quarterly scans every three months to monitor his body for any potential relapse signs and he was due to have these scans in mid-Feb.  Maureen and I made a promise to each other to always do something fun before the scans since you never know what may happen in life (it turns out to be a really good rule)!  So on Monday January 30th, we jumped on a plane and headed to Hawaii.  We landed late Monday night and woke up early and hit the beach and pool.  Liam was in great form, swimming and running as fast as can be.  We headed back up to the hotel room for a quick wash and  then off to lunch.  It was at lunch that Liam seemed a little off and even fell asleep at the table.  With Liam sleeping in the stroller, we headed off for a nice beach side walk.  Liam gave up naps a long time ago so it was a nice change of pace for Maureen and I to chat.  When he woke up he was still not feeling to great, and we headed back to the hotel room.

On the walk home, Liam threw up and said he was not feeling so hot so we hustled up to the room and got cleaned up and headed for a rest.  The next day was filled with lots of vomit, and we were in touch with the pediatrician back home and thinking Liam had picked up the stomach flu at the birthday party on Saturday or on the plane.  On Thursday morning, the vomiting started to get better and we thought we were catching a break.  Later that night, things started to change and Liam started to have a very intense headache.  We reached out to our pediatrician and worked over a few options, most of them were run of the mill stuff but we also had some scary things out there and she recommended heading to the er for hydration if things did not clear up by the next day.

Friday February 3rd, we decided not to waste any time and just headed to the er at the children’s hospital in Honolulu.  We started with some hydration since Liam didn’t have a lot to eat of drink.  Given our history and the intensity of the headaches we got a CT and some x-rays.  A few moments after the test results were back, the ER attending informed us in very blunt terms that Liam has a tumor in his brain and it was bleeding.  The ER consulted with Neurosurgery and they opted to intubate,  some sedation and an MRI to see what the was going on in Liam’s brain.  As you can imagine the next few hours were brutal, we were very lucky to have one of  our oldest friends (Brendan Smith who lives on the island)  with us to keep us from totally losing our minds.

Our first move was to get off the island and back to the hospital in Chicago.  After reviewing everything, Neurosurgery cleared us to fly and we booked three tickets on the next plane out of town.  Brendan drove me back to the hotel to pack our stuff since we were about 10 hours from take off.  When we returned to the ER Liam was resting and Maureen was working with our doctors back home on a plan for when we land.  It was about that time that the ER attending came in and told us he  decided he was not going to release us and that if we decided to try to fly with Liam he would die.  He mentioned two other doctors at the hospital had been involved in the decision.  We demanded to speak to everyone and got our doctors in Chicago on the phone.  After several intense conversations, it became clear the ER doctor was the only one that held the opinion.  Sensing we may be trapped on an island by this one individual  that did not have the means to treat Liam (they could not even give him platelets) , Brendan, Maureen and I even discussed just breaking out of the ER.  After battling Maureen and our Doctors back home, the ER attending agreed to release us if we waived him of any responsibility (which we did).  We got out of the building as fast as possible and Brendan drove us in the middle of the night to the airport.  When we got to the airport we learned that it did not open for another three hours, so we huddled up outside and starting making plans for our arrival.

The only three tickets open on the flight out were in first class so that actually worked out really well as far as space for us to care for Liam.  We alerted the flight crew to the situation and gave them the numbers to call should anything start to happen.  The staff and crew of American Airlines was amazing, they earned our lifetime business for how amazing they were.

The airplane prepared to depart and the cabin doors closed and pressurized.  Liam grabbed his head and started to scream as the plane was backing out.  Maureen and I asked Liam about the pain and were getting ready to stop the plane, when Liam said in a very strong voice “I’m ok, I’m gonna be ok!”  He was not comfortable so Maureen gave him some morphine and that seemed to settle his pain.  It was an insane start to an insane trip.  WE battled very bad flying conditions, LAX, layovers, pain, fear and exhaustion (we had been awake for 35+ hours at that point) and arrived around midnight on Saturday.

After we arrived at Children’s in Chicago, the team started to inform us of the testing schedule so we could get a better read on the situation.  The CT and MRI here gave us a better look at what was happening and we have been working over the past 30 hours to put a plan together.

We are going to fight this relapse!  We still have more tests to do in the coming days to get a complete picture, but the first battle begins tomorrow February 7th at 10:00 am.  We need all your prayers as Liam is heading in for brain surgery to remove the neuroblastoma mass.  His body is not in ideal condition for this to take place as it has not fully healed from his last battle.  He has one of the best Neurosurgeons in the county doing the operation tomorrow.  The procedure may take most of the day, so any moment you have please stop and say a prayer.

When we get a chance to catch our breath, and get some more of the test results we will try to update everyone with some better information and less run on sentences.

Thanks to everyone for the love and support, we are spinning right now and need all of you!

[96warrior]

Update here...this warrior is living up to the name.

http://www.liamsgang.com/

[Henry Sugar]

Update here...this warrior is living up to the name.

http://www.liamsgang.com/

Thanks.  Yeah, today was the first day back on chemo.  Radiation starts on Wed.  Last week was an all-day brain surgery to remove the tumor. 

[strotty]

Thanks.  Yeah, today was the first day back on chemo.  Radiation starts on Wed.  Last week was an all-day brain surgery to remove the tumor. 

My younger brother is a two-time cancer survivor. The second time I was his bone marrow donor. Nothing but prayers for Liam going upstairs to the Big Guy.