NEW YORK -
Gabrielle DiCarlo is a typical 5-year-old, playing with her sisters and her favorite stuffed animal.
Just two months ago doctors told Gabby's parents she needed emergency surgery to save her life.
"We don't know if she's going to make it through the night," mom Nicole DiCarlo said.
Gabby had a cancerous tumor in her abdomen that was so large it ballooned into her liver and heart, blocking all the blood vessels of her lower body.
"The feeling was if you really don't do it in next 24 hours she won't make it," said Dr. Tomoaki Kato of New York Presbyterian-Columbia Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital.
Kato led teams at NY Presbyterian-Columbia who removed the tumor during a very complicated surgery. Surgeons took out Gabby's right kidney, her liver, gallbladder, and appendix. Then they had to open her chest.
"It was involving the heart and that large vein that connects liver and heart that we had to replace was also something that we don't often do at all," said Dr. Emile Bacha of Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital.
The surgery lasted 10.5 hours, but doctors only had a small window of opportunity to stop Gabby's heart, remove the tumor and then get the heart beating again.
Gabby lost her kidney, gallbladder and appendix, but surgeons were able to repair her liver and re-implant it.
Doctors say her cancer is treatable, but Gabby has a long road ahead... recovering from surgery and starting chemotherapy.
This is the first reported emergency pediatric surgery of its kind.
