11/24/2024
The Brooks family is near and dear to my heart. Meghan is my best friend's sister, and her's and Kyle's 3 year old little boy, Lincoln, was just diagnosed with cancer.
I am putting these links and his story out here with permission from them, in hopes that you all will keep them in your thoughts and prayers. This is going to be such a long road for them.
Meg's friends put together a Christmas list for them, and a meal train that you can donate to or sign up to take food to her best friend. The links are below if you feel like giving a little extra this holiday season. The prayers alone are so appreciated.
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/FBQMNJSH5NI7?ref_=wl_share&fbclid=IwY2xjawGwQvxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHc0MZWXbl74cj0qLezJeIg4yXkmFEla5ZWdrzaM7bF1KbA7XGkvrKgknKw_aem_M3cRNLni8vKmJhizJeMqhg
https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/zrgeky
This is a link for t-shirts made by K&C's Special T's & Cool Beans Graphics - all proceeds go directly to the Brooks family.
https://kcspecialts.com/collections/lincoln-strong?fbclid=IwY2xjawGwk0BleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTh_ztBuLCV6TpmiV-m24oRN2sl-TZvOf7P9qVnyTSAlieOZAw1wHj46YA_aem_tUR7U7viegB2Pl1TFG-JEg
Please see below for Meghan's post to hear more about Linky and his story so far -
"Long post alert.. we want to update all of you as everyone has been overwhelmingly supportive and continuously praying for our sweet boy so… here is our story so far…
10 days ago, what started as slight facial weakness turned into our living nightmare…
We went to Hurley last week with Lincoln because he had not been acting himself (there were a few things that led up to this decision) at school on top of the facial weakness and we decided it was time for more accurate answers as to what is causing his symptoms. A CT, blood work and an MRI later we were headed to Ann Arbor to Mott Children’s Hospital. Imaging showed a mass/lesion in his right temporal bone area/inner ear and Hurley was not confident in determining what it was/a course of action. We had a FANTASTIC experience at Hurley and I’m not discrediting them whatsoever in fact I’m thankful they knew to send us to the specialists that could handle/determine what it was and how to handle it.
Fast forward (I’ll spare all the in between details) to when we arrived to Mott Children’s they had a room ready for us and we settled in. The next day he went for a biopsy of said mass to determine what exactly it was. Tuesday he had a full body PET scan, chest MRI and CT of his neck… our sweet baby has been through so much. Tuesday evening we received the results of the biopsy which confirmed any parents’ worst fear. Cancer.
Linky has what’s called Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma.
It is common in children ages 2-6. It is a cancer that originates in the soft tissue/muscle. There is absolutely NOTHING we could have done to stop it or prevent it. It’s a fluke thing that can happen during development when a muscle cell mutates. Per his oncology team, it responds very well to chemotherapy and radiation and we are remaining hopeful that this will be the case for our brave boy. Wednesday he went for his port placement aka his “Spider-Man sticker” and yesterday we began his first round of “Spider-Man medicine” (chemo).
His team of physicians, nurses, child life specialists here at Mott Children’s and everyone in between have been nothing short of phenomenal. They are so gentle with him and compassioniate as well. They have gone above and beyond for all of us and have left nothing out. Everything that they know that has to do with our son, we know. We are extremely impressed with how we have been cared for and loved these last 2 weeks and I know that will continue because that’s just how they are here.
I might become a U of M fan after all 🤪🤭
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the flooding of prayers and support you all have given us and continue to give us. The food, the donations, the gifts for him, the calls and texts and messages, we are so so so grateful for all of it, big and small ❤️
This will be an extremely long and tiring journey for him and for us. We know he will get worse (symptom wise) before he gets better but we are hopeful, we are positive and we will never stop fighting for him and with him and we know his army won’t either.
We are Lincoln Strong🎗️💪🏻"
