I am kind of embarrassed to type this since I read every ones dx stories and they seem to have caught on early. When Gunner was dx'ed our onc thought he could have had for 6-9 months prior. I know this sounds horrible, but honestly he did not have the typical signs. Plus we were going through a lot during the months before dx. My husband left in Dec 04 to leave for Iraq. Gunner was dx in June 05. Gunner was having a hard time with Mark being gone so he was put on anti anxiety meds. A common side affect sleepiness.
About a month before dx he started having leg pains which I merely shrugged off as growing pains since he has always been in the 5% for height and since my oldest daughter suffered from them too. I started seeing some minor bruising on his legs but no where else 3 weeks before dx. He ran a low-grade fever the week before so our ped brushed it off as a viral infection and was not concerned by the other symptoms. The night before I took him to the ER he started throwing up and had bad stomach pain. I noticed that while giving him a bath his lymph nodes in his groin area were swollen. So instead of taking him to the ER during the night with all 3 of my kids I waited until morning to take him. After during blood work three times the ER doctor instructed us to go to Children’s to see an onc there. He was sure it was ALL and told me the onc could give me more information. After a bone aspiration the onc said his bones were 98% compacted with leukemia cells. I was in such a state of panic. Here I was hearing all this information alone and not knowing if Mark would be able to come back to the states. I guess that I was so overwhelmed with taking care of the three kids, house and everything else alone I just dismissed all the symptoms he had been having. It is pure guilt that I think about every night.
Kim