devastating news...

My precious little nephew has been fighting a hard battle against AT/RT for almost a year now. For the most part things have went well for him during his treatment. Obviously it has been very trying on his little body, he has lost his hair, his beautiful long eye lashes, and has to be poked on a weekly basis. A couple of months back he had an MRI & Lumbar Puncture to check for any tumors or tumor cells in his body. They found some small spots in his brain, but were not sure if it was actually tumors or if it was just inflammation, and no tumor cells from the LP. So he had another MRI and everything was still the same, they were there but they had not grown, so in a way this was good news because we assumed they were not tumors since they were not growing, but it was still a possibility. Well this past Friday he went in for another MRI and a Lumbar Puncture. The results this time were not at all what we had all been hoping and praying for. The spots on his brain have grown, there is a spot on his kidney and tumor cells showed up in his lumbar puncture. The doctor said they should stop the current treatment plan and they will discuss a new plan Tuesday to keep Gabriel comfortable for the remainder of his time with us. This was completely devastating news for all of us. I still do not even know how to handle it. I break down when I think about it, my heart is just crushed! I don't think it is fair that horrible things happen to little children like this. I know that this is God's plan for Gabriel but it's just so hard to accept that. He's just 19 months old (on the 26th of this month)! So I need all of you to just pray for him and for us.