A Journey with my son

Posted by David's Mom on October 15, 2008

A journey with my son….you would think I would talking about times filled with fun, laughter and giggles…but alas it has been filled with all of that only because of the type of son I have.

The beginning of this journey started in September of ‘07.  My Davey who is never sick got a cough and found it hard to breathe, we went from doctor to doctor where we lived in a rural area and we always got the same “it’s just the flu” or “he has a cold”.  But in the middle of October we moved back into town…….and my Davey still had his cough.

I was perplexed because everyone kept telling me that he was fine and there was nothing wrong, so that’s what I kept telling him “go to school, it is in your head..there is nothing wrong”.  This cough was so persistant I took him to our REAL pediatrician (one we would have gone to if it hadn’t been over 2 1/2 hours away) but since we had moved he was right around the corner.

So we went….and they thought that my Davey has asthma and that is what thy treated him for….and while he was on steroids he felt great but when he finished he would go back to feeling awful.  We kept going back and forth treating my Davey until one night he had a REALLY bad night. It was so bad I called the on-call doctor who instructed me to bring my Davey the next morning when I brought his brother in for his appointment.

December 5, 2007, a day I will never forget….it started very innoculously….we got up….got ready…and went to our appointment.  The doctor seemed very concerned gave my Davey another breathing treatment…and then told me he wanted a chest x-ray that he wanted me to bring back to him to read and blood work for both boys, I thinking, “Ok no problem I will back to work at 1:00 p.m”. If I had only known that would never happen that day.

So we went to the lab first and Davey told his younger brother that he would go first to show him it was easy and it did not hurt.  The technician drew his blood…gave him a bandage….he stood up and then passed out.  It took us several minutes to wake Davey up.  We moved him to another room where he could lay down for a few minutes…where he promptly threw up all over the place.

I am thinking “what in the world is going on”  Davey had never been sick, had a problem getting blood drawn, so I knew something was going on but what I wasn’t sure.  When Davey was feeling better we went to have his x-ray of his chest.  That at least went quickly with no incidents.

We went back to the doctor’s office and the doctor looked at Davey’s x-ray.  He called me out of the room and told me he had concern “the heart looks big to me”….he then called a friend who was a pediatric cardiologist and asked if he could see Davey as a favor.  So the next thing I know Davey and are having to drive to Scottsdale (long way from where we were and in traffic).  But we get there and they send us back for an echo cardiogram (ECHO) of Davey’s heart.

As the nurse takes one swipe over his chest she nonchalantly say “I need the doctor in here ” as she leave I look up at the monitor and see me son’s heart on the monitor….surrounded by fluid.  I swallowed my shock thinking to myself  ” what in the world..how long has that been there??”  I went white with shock and I was that Davey was laying down and couldn’t see me.

The doctor came in looked at the screen briefly and came over to me “we will have to admit your son to the hospital”….I was thinking “DUH!!!” but kept my sarcasm to myself.  He called ahead letting his associate know that we would be on our way to Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

When we arrived we were not there 5 minutes and they had Davey back in for surgery….in fact they did not take off his shoes, pants or anything else except his shirt.  They let me kiss him and sent me to a room to wait….and wait.

It seemed like forever before the doctor came to get me.  He told me the procedure to drain the fluid off from around his heart went well BUT (I HATE BUTS) they found blood in it….and that something much more serious than a viral infection was going on but what….they did not know and they would have to run more tests.

By midnight, I have a hematologist (Blood Doctor) take me in a conference room to tell me that my Davey had cancer, he couldn’t tell me what kind yet (we had to do ALOT more tests to do to determine that).

I looked at him in disbelief…my Davey who is never sick…laughs at us when we get the flu or a cold has CANCER!!!! He looked at me and inquired “would you like some kleenex?” I took a deep breath and then said “what do we do next?”. I figured crying wasn’t going to fix it and all it was going to do was give me a snotty nose so I would skip that part until later MUCH later.

He informed me that we would have to do a lot of tests before we could determine exactly what type of cancer and how we would treat it….the longest day and half of my life.

They did lumbar puncture to check his spinal fluid, x-rays, ct scans, ultrasounds, placed a PIC line(like an IV but longer lasting), bonemarrow aspirate (inserting a needle into his hip bone to withdraw some of the bone marrow to test it).  By the 7th we knew what we were fighting…Acute Lymbastic Leukemia t-cell.

My heart dropped…Davey had the kind of cancer that only 10% of the kids ever got, and on top of that he was 13….almost 14 which means he was 4 years out of the age group.  What did that mean…it means Davey was considered HIGH risk…with a low propability of survival.

To be continued

Filed Under: The Journey - Comments:



top