Thursday, March 11, 2010

Rest in peace...

Today Denise received the telephone call that Aaron Erhart our nephew lost his fight with cancer.  Aaron, who is 16 years old, was diagnosed with Burkitt's Lymphoma a couple of weeks ago.  I was re-reading an earlier blog post and I think I have the exact dates wrong but it wasn't that long ago.  Prior to that it was undiagnosed and misdiagnosed as other problems.

Burkitt's Lymphoma is an incredibly fast cancer and by the time Michelle and Fred, Aaron's parents, knew what they were dealing with it was too late.  They admitted him to the hospital emergency room on Tuesday and he was transported down to UCLA Medical Center (I incorrectly thought it was Children's Hospital) late in the evening.  He spent one full day in the ICU at UCLA and then passed away this morning at approximately 0615 hrs.

It is really hard to believe how aggressive this cancer was and how quickly he deteriorated.  This image at the top left was captured in the beginning of January and the entire family was over here in late Jan and he looked fine.  He was having what was thought to be stomach problems but ultimately it was something a lot worse.  Later in Feb when he was getting worse the doctor/surgeon's thought he had a hernia and even the pre-op blood test didn't show anything unusual.  It wasn't until the surgery that they found out that he had cancer.

Aaron was a really great kid and it was fun to have him around.  He always was in a good mood and he would have a blast when he came over playing with Devin, playing with the guitars and just hanging out.  It is really hard to comprehend what has happened.

We pulled Devin and Desirae out of school today to break the news to them and then to travel back over to Bakersfield to let the family grieve together.  Sometimes I really think it is easier when it is family because there is just a different dynamic.  As we feared Devin was devastated by the news and had a hard time with it.  I think it really helped him to be around his other cousins.

I'm still in a state of shock and all I can think right now is Aaron you will be missed!

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