Cahill diagnosed with Lynch Syndrome and cancer 5 weeks after giving birth to her son Ezekiel
“My son is our guardian angel, and my pregnancy saved my life,” said Gabbie Cahill. CMU的校友, 舞蹈教练兼舞蹈队教练迎来了她的第一个孩子, beat cancer and returned to teach at CMU in an even greater capacity than she ever had in the past. Her resiliency is inspiring and the Mavily is incredibly grateful to have her back.
卡希尔2013年毕业于CMU，她的另一半, 当帕尼亚, 他也是CMU的校友，2012年12月毕业. The couple met briefly during high school and attended a dance together before Cahill moved to the front range with her family. “It’s funny, we have our homecoming photo framed in our home now,卡希尔说. They were reunited by chance at CMU and their relationship was instantly renewed.
The couple was ecstatic to find out that they were expecting their first child, 他们给他起名叫以西结. “在怀孕期间，我一直在教书和执教. It was during the pandemic so we just did what we could to keep everything as normal as possible,卡希尔说. “大约进行到一半的时候，事情开始变得困难.“卡希尔的右下腹部剧烈疼痛, 她的医生认为哪一个是圆韧带疼痛. 卡希尔也变得贫血，需要输铁, 准妈妈们常遇到的另一件事.
Ezekiel or “Zeke” made his debut, healthy as could be and the delivery was smooth. 但在生完孩子后不久, 卡希尔的腹痛又来了, 持续存在，不能再归因于怀孕. 结肠镜检查显示为6.4 x 9.2cm mass in Cahill’s cecum, which is the point where the small intestine meets the colon. 推测是结肠癌3期淋巴结受影响. 卡希尔和帕尼亚瓜被摧毁了. “我吓坏了，说不出话来. 我所能想到的就是，‘不! 如何? 我家里有个五周大的孩子.’”
“I got really lucky with the people I ended up being surrounded by during all of this,卡希尔说. “我那了不起的妇产科医生. Heather Bourkovski, called a friend she’s known since kindergarten that is a pathologist, Dr. Rachel Lacount, and a few of the nurses caring for me were also first-time moms. They all rallied around me and went to work so quickly to find out what was going on and what could be done. 就像灵魂出窍一样. I couldn’t believe all of this was happening to me right after becoming a mother.”
“还有埃斯托——他是我的靠山, our rock — and was there for me and our son every step of the way and he did it in such a loving and positive way. 他是神奇的. 能称他为我的伴侣真是太好了，”卡希尔说. “When we got the next news he joked that I was the luckiest unlucky person he’s ever met.”
卡希尔的结肠镜检查录像, CT images and lab work were shared between the doctors and finally she got a call from her nurse navigator, 惠特尼, 谁给出了真正的诊断. 卡希尔有林奇综合症, a genetic condition which makes a person 46% more likely to develop colon cancer. 在检查了病理后，卡希尔的肿瘤医生. Sudy Jahangiri noticed that there was something different in her pathology — a protein that wasn't functioning normally. The diagnosis of Lynch Syndrome meant that Cahill could be treated with immunotherapy, 这改变了一切.
“They said that this type of cancer is normally undetectable until it has spread to the point that it’s too late to treat. 如果不是因为怀孕，我今天可能不会站在这里，”卡希尔说. “齐克救了我的命. 我毫无疑问地知道.” Cahill’s diagnosis prompted her mom and sisters to get tested for Lynch syndrome and both are positive. 她的儿子要等到18-21岁才能接受检测, as the marker is a malfunction in a DNA protein and the DNA must be fully developed in order to see it.
The good news is that awareness of the syndrome means more frequent screenings for cancers and this specific type is treatable with immunotherapy alone. Immunotherapy usually accompanies chemo and is delivered via IV in 30-minute sessions. At each appointment the patient must have blood drawn and wait two hours for results to make sure it’s safe to proceed. 因为COVID协议, 卡希尔必须每三周接受一次治疗，持续了五个月, 独自.
到了第三个月，肿瘤缩小了50%. 随后又进行了六次治疗. In 4月il of 2022 Cahill underwent surgery to remove the significantly smaller mass, 三分之二的大肠, 42 lymph nodes and all the scar tissue that was blocking their ability to see if any cancer remained through CT scans. In May, after the surgery, her pathology reports showed that the cancer was completely dead.
“It’s maybe not the best decision to jump right back into dance after major abdominal surgery but three months later, 我在这里全职教学,卡希尔说. 目前，她的班级负担比CMU历史上任何一位舞蹈老师都要大. “The dance program is in my heart all the time and I’m very dedicated to this MAVILY. 我被我所得到的支持感动了. 他们本可以换掉我，但他们没有. They stepped in to help cover my classes and the dance team and made sure that I could focus on healing. I’m happy to be back working with them — they all inspire me whether they realize it or not.”
还有选定的家庭成员和非常亲密的朋友, the dance team and Cahill’s colleagues were in the very small circle that knew what she was going through. “I didn’t make a big announcement about my diagnosis because I really wanted to stay focused and positive through this journey. My medical team believes that this choice and serious nutritional changes had a lot to do with how quickly I was able to beat this,卡希尔说。. “我一直是一个非常积极的人，我喜欢和别人分享. 和学生们在工作室里一起创作对我来说是如此的鼓舞人心. I am so happy to be back and I have found a different way of movement in dance because after everything that has happened, 我的身体现在完全不一样了.”
Cahill said she realizes now that the cancer was there before her pregnancy and that she just wasn’t listening to her body. She also wasn’t paying much attention to the quality of food she was eating and that has all changed now. 怀着对营养及其治疗和预防能力的新热情, 卡希尔极力鼓励每个人倾听自己身体的声音, check in with their doctors if they feel something might be wrong and to educate themselves on the correlation between food ingredients and physical and mental illnesses and disease. She is currently researching different ways to get involved in supporting research and raising awareness of Lynch Syndrome and cancer prevention and treatment.
作为 形成未来倡议, pp电子极速糖果收养了洛夫, 尊严, 勇气, 谦卑, 弹性, 好奇心和力量作为价值观的基础. 加比·卡希尔的勇气和坚韧鼓舞了我们所有人.