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.
If you’ve found your way here, then Giorgio’s story has found you, you care, and you want to know what’s going on with our little warrior. For those American/English-speakers, updates will be made by Uncle Don (John Sobolewski) and Auntie Lauren. We’ll try the best we can to have Andrea’s sister, Debbie, translate updates to those of you overseas in Florence (and beyond) who are here for the journey.
Giorgio’s story to recovery began in early November, when LeeAnn and Andrea noticed something was just “off” about Giorgio. He had trouble sleeping, had frequent and random episodes of vomiting, and had spoken of near-constant headaches that began affecting his appetite. After weeks of consultation with specialists and a growing frustration at the seeming lack of progress or a definitive prognosis, a November 22nd MRI confirmed that Giorgio had a cystic mass in the right frontal lobe of his brain that resembled a tumor.
Unfortunately, that path to recovery is going to be longer than we were hoping. Giorgio’s tumor was found to be cancerous. The pathology results came back far sooner than expected and are consistent with a malignant and rare form of brain cancer called atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor, or ATRT.
The current plan is a “trimodal” therapy – surgery (already completed via resection on 12/5), five cycles of chemotherapy (two induction cycles at Children’s’ three high-dose with stem cell transplant at UMN Masonic) and proton radiation at Mayo. Given how aggressive ATRT is, there are little to no pause and the initial treatment is expected to be complete by end of July. As a reminder, Giorgio’s birthday is July 30th and his family is looking forward to celebrate his 5th birthday and the end of the first phase of treatment.
After that the road to recovery includes 1 year and half of monthly spinal injections and daily oral chemo. Frequent scans and check-ins.
We’ll continue to post routine updates on this page as the family progresses through recovery. Thank you for reading, for supporting Giorgino and his family, and for the constant prayers and support received. It is needed. And we love you, too.
Andrea's sister has also created a GoFundMe page. Click "Ways to Help" above and follow the link there for more information.
Forza Giorgio!
*CLARIFICATION ON DONATIONS* Due to the amazing support and generosity that loved ones near and far have been showing, we want clear up some confusion around tributes vs donations. To clarify, “Tributes” go to fund the CaringBridge websites (not just this one), which is a worthwhile cause. However, if you would like to help Giorgio and his family directly, please consider the options outlined in the “Ways to Help” tab where, along with the GoFundMe donations to the family, you can find other ideas such as takeout, groceries, delivery gift cards, helpful chores, etc. We will post updates there about additional needs as they arise. If you made a tribute to CaringBridge but meant to donate to the family, please call CaringBridge at 651-452-7940 (tel:651-452-7940) (tel:651-452-7940 (tel:651-452-7940)) or email them at CustomerCare@CaringBridge.org and they will refund your donation.
Just a quick update to share the good news that the team doesn't think there are signs of relapse.
After an unusually long wait that made us think the worst (“Are they thinking about how to tell us?”; “Are they reviewing it with the whole team to come up with a plan”) we finally got the reading that things remained similar to two months ago and the spinal fluid is clear. The two spots that require continuous monitoring are likely post-radiation changes. One shrunk in size while the other is a bit bigger.
News on the cerebral fluid and if the shunt is working as expected will need to wait for a follow up with the neurosurgeon in two weeks.
Thanks for all your messages. More news to come soon.
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