Gavin was a fifteen-year-old sophomore at South High School when he began to lose weight and become severely fatigued, with fever and chills. He had suffered a terrible case of food poisoning earlier in the semester, which masked the real issue. After months of weight loss (45 pounds) despite normal labs, a CT revealed his worst fear and led to a biopsy from a lymph node behind his lung. He had stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma, the same cancer his sister Lilian had been diagnosed with three years earlier. He completed six months of aggressive chemotherapy, played high school lacrosse the entire time, and has been off-therapy for five years. He graduated from Mount St. Mary’s University in 2025, and continues to play division I lacrosse there as a graduate student. He is also a proud cat dad.
