Hollings Horizons

[A young woman struggles to contain a wriggly little boy in her lap as they sit in front of a stained glass window mosaic portraying a live oak]

(Allie Strong): Our world just flipped upside down, like that fast. Never expected, like, a tumor or any of that.

[Upbeat music plays over MUSC Hollings Cancer Center logo. Snapshots fill the screen of the little boy and girl with baby sister, the boy in a Halloween costume, the boy with his father on a baseball field ]

Luke is our oldest son. He likes to play outside. He likes anything boy – trucks, tractors, balls.

[Allie and Luke walk along a landscaped play area as he swings part of his medical gear like a sword]

He's really into sword fighting and reptiles right now. And he is super sweet. He's like the sweetest little boy.

[Snapshots of Luke in the hospital]

Last year on Mother's Day he was just, like, screaming in pain all night. And I was like, this is not usual. He was just saying “my belly.” So we went to the E.R.

[Screen displays: “After weeks of symptoms and two trips to the ER, doctors found that Luke had pancreatoblastoma. Pancreatoblastoma is a rare pancreatic cancer that primarily affects young children.”]

(Dr. Kevin Roggin) [Dr. Roggin sits at his desk]: I remember when we first talked about his case, it was like, I don't know how we could possibly do an operation that would effectively remove his tumor.

[Snapshots of Luke acting goofy with his IV pole, hanging out with nurses for his birthday, and laying in his hospital bed]

We kept surgery on the table as an option to see but none of us really felt like that was the best option.

And it's only after, you know, his really dedicated team of oncologists at Shawn Jenkins that kept pushing the envelope in terms of systemic therapies. And when we sort of reached a point where we felt like the tumor was as small as it was going to be and we then decided to put together a multidisciplinary team.

And together we mapped out a plan to try to remove Luke's tumor.

[Screen displays: “That plan included a Whipple procedure – a complex surgery to remove the head of the pancreas, duodenum, gallbladder and bile duct to treat the tumor. It is a rare, high-stakes surgery for children.”]

(Allie)[Allie and Luke in front of the stained glass]: I was a little nervous being that, like, Dr. Roggin is an adult, like primarily an adult [doctor]. But he has been excellent. He's, like, been top tier. Like, he was just so great with Luke. And, we're very grateful.

[Dr. Roggin in his office]: Most of our experience in this specific operation is in the adult population and in my career – over 20 something years, the range that I had operated on was 14 to 91. So Luke represents the youngest case that I've done.

[Luke and his mother play in the outdoor play area]

It's an operation that is one of the most complex operations we do in abdominal surgical oncology. I always describe it to patients as it's like kind of the Boardwalk and Park Place of the body, where it's really high-priced real estate, and there's a lot of structures that we need to preserve.

[Dr. Roggin in his office]

And in Luke's case, because he had had a longstanding tumor and blockage of the venous drainage back to his liver, in order to take out his tumor, we had to separate all those connections that his body, you know, made to return blood because it was blocked.

[Allie and Luke in front of the stained glass]

(Allie): When Dr. Roggin and Dr. Cina came and told us, “Hey, it's done. Like the tumor peeled away and we didn't have to touch the vein.” I was like, I was just astonished. I was like, “Wow, this is amazing.”

[Snapshots of Luke in the hospital, snuggling with dad and of a large group of supporters in the lobby]

(Dr. Roggin): Instead of worrying about the playground and all these other things, Luke was, you know, in and out of the hospital.

But what, you know, what struck me about him and his family is how optimistic they were, how much they were people of faith, and they had such a strong, supportive community that sort of rallied behind Luke.

[Screen displays, “The Strongs hope to take this challenge and turn it into something good.]

(Allie): We would just like to see for him to complete this oral chemo and hopefully, maybe start school next year. And to get on with life and – yeah, just...I hope that he can use this to help other people. And that's how I've looked at it is I want to be able to use our experience to help other people – other families going through stuff like this.

(Roggin): You know, Luke's a special boy, has got a special family and they obviously were dealt a very difficult hand. But what was unique about their family and their support was that they really had faith that, you know, they were in the right place and the right hands.

And it made everyone's job easier because we, we sort of felt like they understood and they were so grateful for, you know, anything that we could do to help Luke that it made it easy to work with them.

And it was a really high point for our team to go in there and, you know, see Luke at the different stages of recovery.

[Cell phone video of Luke and Dr. Roggin play sword fighting in a hospital room]

And, Luke is a sword fighter. He is – that's his thing. And so, I was able to to participate. And I will say that Luke definitely defeated his surgeon with his sword fighting skill, but it was a fun part of, you know, getting to see him. When he could get back to sword fighting, that's when I knew it was going to be better.

[MUSC Hollings Cancer Center logo]