One of the scariest days ever for me came in January of this year. On Sunday, Brian & I noticed that Sadie was a little more bruised up than a normal one year old learning how to walk. On Monday morning when I went to wake her up, she had dried blood around her nose & just a small amount on the sheet of her crib. I took her to daycare that day. When I picked her up, they said her nose bled off & on all day. I called the doctor's office & they said it was probably just the weather change made her sinuses dry out. That night when we were giving her a bath, I noticed little red spots in random places on her (arms, legs, ankles, stomach, neck). So I called the doctor's office again on Tuesday. The nurse checked Sadie's blood counts from the 3 CBC's she had from September to December because of anemia & said her platelets were normal all 3 times. Tuesday night at bath time, I noticed more bruises (one really bad one on her chin that was black) & more red spots. Wednesday morning I was doing a health screening from 6-10 so I asked Brian to call & make her an appointment for lunch time or after. He called me around 9 & said he was taking her to the doctor. About 9:45 he called back & said they were admitting us to the hospital. Of course, I immediately started crying, grabbed my stuff & left the health screening. What he didn't explain was that we were actually being sent to the children's cancer clinic at Batson - even scarier. After checking in & getting Sadie's vital signs, they did another finger stick to check her blood count. Her platelet level at the pediatrician's office was 2,000 (normal is 150,000); at the cancer clinic it was 4,000. God took such good care of us that entire day. From our pediatrician praying over Sadie before sending her to Batson, to the 3 nurses that we knew at the cancer clinic (had no idea they worked there before that), to all the visits, calls & text messages that we received before we even got admitted to the hospital, & the many, many prayers Sadie received, we felt such peace that this was all going to work out & be ok.
Sadie was diagnosed with ITP (idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura), which is low platelets. Our wonderful hematologist, Dr. Megason, & all of the other doctors & nurses that took care of Sadie while she was in Batson, were so good about explaining everything to us from start to finish. They gave Sadie a dose of IVIG, an IV treatment that is a blood product. It helped her platelet count increase to 29,000 by the next afternoon. We went back every week to the cancer clinic for the next 8 weeks, then we went to a monthly appointment to get her platelets checked. Two weeks ago was our last appointment there because Sadie's platelet count was 123,000! It is still not normal, but it has steadily increased so we will have it checked at our next pediatrician appointment.
Thankfully, Sadie never acted like she really felt bad during this whole process. She still played, ate & slept like normal once we were out of the hospital & back home. They had lots of fun toys at the hospital & in the cancer clinic that she got to try out. The staff at the cancer clinic spoils her rotten every time she goes in there. We always left with toys, snacks, stickers, etc! This was seriously not a fun experience, but I think God taught Brian & me a lot about trusting in him & having faith in his plan & his will.
These are the only 2 pictures I took during the whole ordeal. I didn't take any of her bruises or petechiae (little red spots) - She even got to teach some medical students what petechiae looks like!
