Matthew Rapoza
Matthew Rapoza
Stage IV Neuroblastoma, in treatment
Our Story
Like many five-year-olds, Matthew had played until he couldn’t play any more. Another words until total exhaustion. But beginning in the latter part of May 2004, he began complaining of back and neck pain as well as acting slowly and his appearance was pale as we found out he was anemic. The pediatrician prescribed medication for his anemia and said that the neck and back pains were from over-activity. On Sunday June 27th, Matthew’s dad was rubbing Matthew tummy when he had felt a swelling in Matthew’s abdomen. The next day we made an appointment to see the pediatrician to inform him of the swelling and the pediatrician ordered another blood test as he thought it might be a swollen spleen due to mononucleosis. It was almost two hours later when the nurse called and said that she had made an appointment for Matthew to see a hematology doctor at Mass General hospital the next day. We were very anxious and slept very little that night and left for the morning appointment with Matthew his parents and his grandmother. We met Doctor Gobel at the clinic and after a physical examination and her feeling the swelling she had ordered a blood test and ultrasound as well as a CT Scan. Though we feared that it was bad we still held out hope that it was something that could be fixed with medication and we’d be home later. We were so wrong! During the ultrasound the technician said that she needed to leave the room and get the radiologist to come in and make sure she got all the proper views. Both my wife and I looked at each other and began to cry, as we knew that it was bad. The technician returned with the radiologist, Dr. Gobel, and another doctor and they had very grim looks about them, as what they were looking at was a 10cm tumor in the left side of his abdomen. It was with that that Dr. Gobel said that Matthew needs to stay in the hospital and that they need to surgically insert a central line as well as to biopsy the tumor. We met Dr. Ryan, Matthew’s surgeon, who was going to be performing the surgery the very next day. Needless to say, there was no sleep to be had with regard to any of the adults in Matthew’s family. That day, we waited around until noon when both my wife and I walked down to the operating room with Matthew. Prior to walking him into the surgical suite my wife and I had to dress in some very tight fighting jumpsuits so that we could walk Matthew into the operating room. The operating room had all sorts of surgical tools and equipment as well as several medical people who were waiting for us. We transferred Matthew onto the operating table and the anesthesiologist administered the medication that would keep Matthew sedated for the entire time he was to be operated on. It was so difficult for us to watch Matthew being sedated and seeing him give one very deep breath that was the signal that he was sedated and we had to leave. We were given permission to take the masks down and kiss Matthew and were escorted immediately out of the operating room both of holding onto each other crying and Dr. Ryan said that he’d take good care of our son just before the door closed. The hospital had given us a text messaging pager where we were given updates almost hourly. It was nearly the end of the surgery where we got the message that Dr. Ryan had done a complete resection of the tumor and that Matthew’s abdomen was clear of any remaining cancer. Needless to say, we were elated by the news since it was the first positive news we had heard since we were in the hospital. After five and a half-hours we were told that Matthew was in the PICU and for us to go there to see him. It was a couple days later that we got complete information with regard to the stage, progression, and prognosis. We were told Matthew has stage IV Neuroblastoma, the cancer had progressed to his bone, and were also told that children with the same stage and progression as Matthew has have about 40 to 50 % chance for a cure.
Matthew has had three chemotherapy treatments so far and has not had many bad reactions to it. Also as a par of his therapy he recently had a bone marrow aspiration to find out how the chemotherapy is working thus far. We were very excited to hear that the bone marrow results came back showing no cancer cells in his marrow even after the pathologist performed further testing to really look hard at the marrow. Since then, Matthew has had his fourth treatment and has had a battery of tests including a bone scan and an MIBG scan both with good results. We were told that the only hot spot in his body is the secondary tumor site in his chest so the plan was rearranged to have him go through the stem cell transplant immediately followed by radiation (both targeted and full body). He’d also have to take Accutane to lessen the chance of recurrence and possibly a visit to Sloan Kettering to see if Matthew should get the 3F8 treatments.
Please pray for Matthew as he enters what might be the most difficult part of his treatment thus far.
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It's organizations like this one that will help find a cure for this terrible disease. Please consider that these poor innocent children have very little chance without the generosity of others who donate to an organization like "Lunch for Life".
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