9-year-old from Rock Falls battles Burkitt's lymphoma
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| Jessica Gordon, a fourth-grader at Montmorency School in Rock Falls, had plenty of stuffed animals to help her in her fight against Burkitt’s lymphoma in her room at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria. (Photo submitted by Dan Gordon) |
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ROCK FALLS – Jessica Gordon has been so courageous in her battle with cancer that she’s earned a new title.
“I call her my rock star, because she’s been a rock star though all of this,” Dan Gordon of Rock Falls said of his 9-year-old daughter.
A fourth-grader at Montmorency School, Jessica has been diagnosed with Burkitt’s lymphoma. It’s a fast-growing form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma that occurs most often in children and young adults, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Jessica’s first symptom was an upset stomach.
Then the back of her left leg ached.
Jessica’s mother, Lisa, decided to take her to a doctor on Jan. 16 after she vomited. A CT scan at CGH Medical Center revealed a mass in her stomach, and her parents decided to take her to the Children’s Hospital of Illinois at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria, an affiliate of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
A doctor there made the diagnosis, and the family was told the two stomach tumors had been growing for 4 to 6 weeks. The leg pain came from the tumor growing into her pelvis and pressing on a nerve, Dan said.
He said Burkitt’s lymphoma is very treatable because chemotherapy works well to fight it. The tumor shrank noticeably with the first chemo treatment last week, Dan, 41, said.
A second round of chemo came Tuesday, and her father said doctors are confident Jessica will fare well.
In the meantime, she’s been keeping up with her schoolwork, Superintendent John Rosenberry said. Hospital volunteers are tutoring her and faxing her homework to the school.
The patient has been tough, her dad said.
“I’ve told everybody I wish I was half the man she is,” he said. “She’s shown absolutely no fear. Not once has she said ‘Why me?’ or anything like that. She just kind of has taken everything in stride.”
Lisa, 46, said her daughter’s been “such a trooper.”
“There’s only been a few things she’s cried for,” she said. “It’s amazing the things she’s tolerated.”
Just don’t say the word “cancer” around Jessica. She won’t have it, and has given it a new name.
“We’re here to beat Ebstein,” her father said of the name Jessica coined after the Epstein-Barr virus, which can cause Burkitt’s lymphoma.
Ebstein cut short a project Jessica had been working on for 2 years – growing her hair long to be cut for Locks of Love in support of her aunt, who was diagnosed with breast cancer. When Jessica received her own diagnosis, she decided to have brown hair, which had grown down to her bottom, snipped off before she experienced her own chemo-related hair loss.
A beautician who knew one of her mother’s friends came to the hospital on Jan. 21 to give Jessica the first dramatic haircut of her life. She was able to make the donation to Locks of Love.
To show her that being bald is no big deal, Jessica’s father and her big brothers, D.J., 14, and Branden, 11, have shaved their heads.
So, too, have D.J.’s friends on the Rock Falls High School freshman basketball team – now Team Jessica. One player, Matt Long, had Jessica’s name written into his hair with the shears.
Bald also is in at Montmorency School, where some of Branden’s and Jessica’s friends have followed suit.
The school is organizing multiple events to raise money for the family.
Earlier this week, students who donated $1 were allowed to wear pajamas to school.
Today, money will be raised during a charity game between the eighth-grade boys basketball team and teachers. The annual game, usually played during a school day free of admission charge, this year will be at 4 p.m. with a small entry fee. There also will be a raffle.
Dan said the family will give any unused funds to St. Jude, which has been “wonderful.”
The family isn’t sure how long Jessica will be hospitalized. She’ll have a few more chemo treatments, the next coming in about a month.
The pain in her leg is gone, but her foot hurts. Doctors think it might be her nerves reacting to the chemotherapy, Dan said.
The hospital staff didn’t allow Jessica to eat for several days, while they ran tests and scans and did blood work.
But this week she was allowed to eat, and Dad’s had to make runs to the local McDonald’s to get two-cheeseburger Happy Meals to keep up with her appetite.
She also enjoys the hospital’s chicken soup.
It helps feed her courageous fight to beat Ebstein.
To help
To help the Gordon family as Jessica battles Burkitt’s lymphoma, you can:
– Attend today’s “Pack the House for Jessie” basketball game – the Montmorency School eighth-grade boys basketball team plays against the school’s teachers. The game is at 4 p.m. at the school, 9415 Hoover Road. Admission is $2 for adults and $1 for students and seniors. Funds will help the family pay hospital bills.
– Buy a T-shirt from her big brother, D.J. Gordon, at Rock Falls High School.
– Make a donation to the Gordons at Montmorency School.
Call the school at 815-625-6616 for more information.
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