Angels for Alexis
Alexis is a beautiful, compassionate 17 year old with an amazing smile that one day dreams of becoming an engineer. On Father’s day Alexis went to the lake with her family like lots of kids do. Shortly after arriving she began noticing red patches on various parts of her skin and decided stay in the shade and just put her feet in the water. After a few hours passed she started experiencing terrible leg cramps and asked to go home. Once she returned home things seemed to return to normal.
The next morning she had terrible stomach cramps followed by vomiting and diarrhea. Her parents knew something had to be wrong so they took her to the Emergency Room. After a few tests the doctors decided something wasn’t quite right and chose to do an CT Scan of her abdomen. The results came back showing her liver was enlarged and almost completely covered in tumors (like that of a 70 year old man) except for a small area about the size of a half-dollar. She was immediately transferred to St Francis Children’s Hospital where she was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer called NET Cancer (Neuroendocrine Endocrine Tumors). After 3 solid weeks of scans and testing the doctors were still unable to locate the original tumor that had metastisized to her liver so aggressively.
On July 15, she was transferred to Baptist Medical in Oklahoma City where she underwent exploratory surgery in hopes of finding the primary tumor. During this surgery they removed her appendix, a foot of her small intestine and part of her colon which all came back negative for cancer. This led the doctors to believe that this cancer originated in her liver which makes it an even more rare type of cancer for a girl of her age to have.
Approximately 72 hours after her surgery her condition took a turn for the worse. She was already considered to be in liver failure due to the cancer, her kidneys began to shut down, she developed an infection and her lungs began to fill with fluid. She was put on a ventilator and is currently fighting to live while waiting to find out if she is eligible for a liver transplant. Biopsies from the surgery have been sent to Mayo Clinic and the family has been told she may need to be tranferred to a speciality hospital out of state such as theirs or MD Anderson for further treatment. As you can imagine bills are starting to pile up and her family is under great stress trying to be there for their daughter around the clock and maintain some type of normalcy for her and her little brother. Regardless of the outcome, Patrick and Stephanie will need plenty of financial support in the coming months ahead.
