Daniel Campe

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting. Daniel first noticed a lump in his armpit a week or so before Thanksgiving. It was not painful and seemed to get smaller at one point so we decided to keep an eye on it. Looking back around the same time Daniel did start to experience some bloating and abdominal discomfort but we did not connect the two. We have Eva (age 4) and Luisa (age 2) so it is not uncommon for them to bring home a stomach bug from daycare. Then on December 11th Daniel began vomiting. Again we thought it was a stomach flu that would pass maybe combined with stress/working too much. That Friday we went to the emergency room - Daniel had not been able to keep food down for days. They gave him fluids and some anti-nausea medication. We let them know about the lump but they suggested we check it next week with his regular doctor. A few days later Daniel was still vomiting and he went in for his lump. The doctor ordered an ultrasound of his gallbladder but they found that his intestines were blocked. He was admitted in the ER again. They did a CT scan and comfirmed something was blocking his small intestines. He was prepped for emergency surgery and a biopsy of the enlarged lymph node in his armpit. Part of Daniel's intestines were removed where they found a small mass. While he recovered in the hospital biopsy results showed Daniel had an aggressive fast growing cancer called Burkitt Lymphoma. The oncologist wanted to start chemotherapy as soon as possible but surgeons wanted Daniel to first recover from his surgery. After a week Daniel was still not able to keep food down or regain bowel function. The oncologist believed that the cancer was growing so fast that he kept blocking. After the surgeons ok, Daniel started chemotherapy. After 3 days the chemo shrunk the cancer enough to where Daniel could finally keep food down after about 4 weeks of not eating and having to rely on IV nutrition. He has not been home since about December 19th as his chemotherapy requires him to be hospitalized for weeks at a time. 
We cannot begin to thank everyone enough for all the love and support! Our hearts are so full we could never have imagined the amount of kindness and generosity we have experienced! We will continue to try and update friends and family through caringbridge. At the moment Daniel is improving everyday but we know with the intense 3-6 month chemotherapy that there will be good days and bad. Thank you everyone again for everything!