Two years have passed, so much has happened. From slipping in science class, to losing my hair and taking thirty pills a day. With having multiple blood and platelet transfusions just to keep you going and mini-strokes happening because of the poisons healing my body. Having leukemia, you learn you have to get sicker before you can get better.
On a warm week day in August, I slipped in the sixth grade science classroom. Right away a huge bruise appeared and that night I started running fever. I went to the doctor’s office and the diagnosis was a sinus infection. So they sent us home with antibiotics and told us it would clear right up. After a couple of weeks the fever and bruise were still there and had not at all faded.
My grandfather, who is a doctor, told my mother to get blood work for me. At the doctor’s office, the nurse was trying to get my veins but they kept collapsing. I had to get poked at least twelve times over the course of one to two days before they sent us to the Children’s satellite hospital in Parker. Only there did the person finally get my vein and draw blood. When the doctor called with the results, he told us not to come back, but to go to The Children’s Hospital in Denver and that they had already made an appointment at the hematology and oncology clinic there.
When we arrived there, we checked in and waited for someone to take us back. While we waited I became more and more anxious. About thirty minutes later someone finally came and got us. First they took my vitals, then they drew more blood, and third they took us to a room to wait for the results and the doctor. The doctor eventually showed up with a new diagnosis, the blood work had come back showing blasts meaning leukemia which is a type of cancer. Right then my entire life changed, I thought my life would be over at age eleven.
I had to stay at the hospital for about a week. Over the course of that week, I had found out that my cancer was Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (A.L.L) pre B cell. Within 24 hours of finding out, I had my medi-port surgically placed. Also by the end of the week, I had received my first chemo. During my first bone marrow aspiration and spinal tap, I also received my first blood transfusion.
When we got home the first thing we did was cut my hair to shoulder length. (I still have my ponytail of hair, I couldn’t donate it because I had already had my first chemo.) I was diagnosed September 13, 2006 and had very little hair by the beginning of November, and by that time I decided to have my sister Katie shave my head. It is very hard to go from having hair down to your waist, to having to wear a hat just because there is not a single strand of hair to keep you warm.
With cancer, or leukemia to be more specific, comes IV chemo and lots of pills. Before having cancer I had never taken a pill; after becoming sick I had to take at least thirty pills a day, and at least once a week I had to get treatment at the hospital. If I was lucky, I would make it through the week without having a blood or platelet transfusion. One time we waited too long for a blood transfusion. I could hardly lift myself off my bed.
When you are low on red blood cells, there’s not enough oxygen in your blood stream, so you get very tired and your heart will start pounding after just a little bit of movement. So this time, since we had waited so long, I blacked out for just a second but almost passed out from being so low. The great thing is, after you receive the transfusion, you immediately feel much better. Platelet transfusions are a little different; you don’t really know when you are low unless you start bleeding very easily. When I get a platelet transfusion I start feeling tightness in my chest and begin wheezing. My oncologist just figures that I’m allergic to them so I just keep my inhaler nearby and pre-med with Benadryl and Tylenol.
About nine months into treatment on Mother’s Day 2007, I wasn’t feeling so well, so I took a nap in the afternoon. By early evening I woke up, and when I went to eat dinner, I couldn’t use my right hand to get the fork to my mouth.
Within a couple of hours I was completely paralyzed on the right side of my body, and we were on our way to the Emergency Room. During the ride over, it resolved and was okay, and I could move my arm and leg. At the ER they took blood work and examined me. Everything was ok. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong because my symptoms had disappeared, except I was neutropenic (low blood counts, nothing to fight with) and low on platelets. We had our usual scheduled appointment at the oncology clinic the next morning, so by 2:30am we were on our way home only to return by 8:00am Monday.
After a few hours of sleep, we returned to the hospital. While getting ready for my platelet transfusion, my arm started feeling funny while getting my vitals taken, like it did the night before. The nurse brought us to my room where I would receive my platelets, and another nurse brings in Tylenol and hands them to me. But I can’t bring my hand up high enough to grab them. This is when we know it is happening again.
The nurse injects Benadryl in to the pump that infuses medicines into my medi-port. So immediately I fall asleep and slept during my whole transfusion. When I wake up next, it’s to my Oncologists voice, and at this point my entire right side is numb. I was trying to say something but was slurring my words. As soon as she looked at me, she said, “Her lip is drooping, we need a cat scan NOW!”
So she got me a wheelchair as she was calling out orders to the charge nurse to call downstairs and tell them I AM bringing her myself! Off to radiology we went. Normally a nurse will take you down, but not this time. Doctor Kerry was taking me down personally. My mom was so scared and so was I!
I was completely paralyzed on the right side of my body and was having mini strokes. I was hospitalized for a week. Over that week I had an EEG, an MRI and 2 cat-scans. I had to have a separate line (IV) other than my medi-port run, and it took 4 nurses and several hours and pokes to get to my vein! Finally we had to leave the inpatient floor, go down stairs and get an ER nurse and a paramedic to do it! After several days of presenting and resolving and lots and lots of tests, my doctors came to the conclusion that the chemo they injected into my cerebral fluid during a spinal tap had caused a toxic reaction. It usually happens with kids that are getting a higher dose chemo. I am just extremely sensitive to all the meds. I still had to take that kind of chemo, but I had to take a “rescue drug” 42 hours after my procedure to reverse the effects. Thankfully it never happened again!
Poison heals my body, nothing else. I will have completed 30 months of Chemo Therapy by the time I am finished with treatment. A lot has happened to me since I was diagnosed 3 years ago! I have definitely learned with Cancer you have to get sicker before you can get better!