Gavyn McCrea
Gavyn was born on September 2nd to mom Megan and dad Matt and later becoming an excellent big sister to Morgan. Gavyn is a wonderfully vivacious girl. She’s incredibly kind hearted, empathetic, hilarious, silly, and full of energy. She’s a natural performer who started dancing when she was 5 years old and began dancing competitively in 7th grade. She absolutely loves to dance, and it’s been a pillar of her life, up until she began to experience symptoms of her tumor this year.
Gavyn loves being around kids- she adores mentoring them in the dance studio, student teaching, often taking the youngest ones under her wing, and spending as much time as possible with her little cousins. So it is no surprise that Gavyn has dreams of becoming an elementary school teacher.
Gavyn loves spending time at the beach, family game & movie nights, and spending time with her friends at the Rehoboth boardwalk. She’s looking forward to her very first concert on her upcoming 16th birthday in September - Bruno Mars! Gavyn loves music, musical theater (especially Hamilton), and watching kinds of performances.
Gavyn was learning how to drive, pre-diagnosis, and she was very happy to receive the all clear recently to continue practicing on the road as she works towards her goal of obtaining her drivers license.
Diagnosis
Gavyn began having issues with her balance, which was extremely strange for her as a competitive dancer. As her balance got worse, she began experiencing nausea, constantly. Her parents took her to urgent care over a weekend, and they believed it was likely vertigo, and told them to follow up with her primary care doctor on the following Monday. When her primary care doctor examined her, her mom vividly remembers the moment she had Gavyn stand with her arms out and close her eyes - she immediately fell to the side into her arms, and Megan felt in her core that something was horribly wrong. She suggested they drive the 2 hours to the Nemours Children's Hospital ER in Wilmington, as they would be able to do more extensive testing there if needed, but she also thought it was probably vertigo. In the ER, Megan and Matt pushed for an MRI, because Gavyn expressed that not only was she dizzy and nauseous but she was also experiencing weakness on her right side. Because she has strong legs as a dancer, they didn’t register the weakness she was feeling during her examinations. Thankfully, l they agreed to do the MRI because that scan changed everything- the kind ER doctor pulled them aside and told them there was a mass. There weren’t sure what it was just yet, but there was a large mass. The next morning, the neurology oncologist gave us the heartbreaking news that it was DIPG- something they had never heard of before. And the prognosis was/is terrifying.
Gavyn's parents want to share her story because they're learning how differently the symptoms can be from child to child. Hers presented as vertigo and likely would have continued to be treated as vertigo if they hadn’t gotten the MRI that night in the ER. If Gavyn’s story can help bring awareness to this horrible disease and potentially help another family, she wants to help others in any way she can.
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