Sarah started kindergarten on Thursday Aug. 19, 2004. That weekend, she and Tyler, her brother, had a few soccer games in a soccer tournament. Sarah stood around most of the time. Several times when we were walking across the park to get pictures taken or get to her brother’s game, she would stop and refuse to walk. I was furious with her. I thought she was just being stubborn because she didn't want to be there and it was hot.
On Sunday that weekend my Mom came and visited to play with the kids. Sarah asked to take a nap (hadn't taken them regularly in quite a while) and I told her to get up and go play. y Mom noticed that she was really pale and we noticed that she had bruises on her legs. I thought about taking her to the doctor and kind of decided to wait and see. On Tuesday morning, I noticed that she had purplish red spots on the inside of her thighs and inner arms. I asked my neighbor about it who is a nurse and she said I might want to call the doctor. I sent the kids to school and went in to work. I called the doctor and made an appointment at 10:00. Our doctor was immediately concerned. She left the room, made a phone call and told me that a hem/onc. Doctor she knew would be waiting for us at Children's hospital. She wanted us to get a blood test and didn't want to wait four hours for the results from Quest. She said Sarah looked to be terribly anemic and it could be many things the worst of which is leukemia.
I called my husband at home and filled him in. He asked if I really wanted him to come (he had had shoulder surgery the week before and I had wanted him to follow the doctors orders and not drive). I told him to get in his car and meet me at the ER. Within an hour, after an x-ray and a blood test, a hem/onc doctor told us she was 90% certain that Sarah had leukemia - they would have a confirmation that evening. We were immediately admitted (for 3 1/2 weeks) and Sarah received a RBC and platelet transfusion to prepare for her port surgery the next day.
Sarah's RBC's were at 4.5, platelets at 22 and WBC's at 50,000. We found out that evening that Sarah had pre-B ALL. Looking back on our experience, I feel fortunate that she was diagnosed so quickly--within about three hours of our initial visit to the pediatrician. When I looked back at the pictures of her first day of school, I couldn't believe that I had not noticed that she was so very pale before my Mom mentioned it. One other unusual thing we identified was that she had been obsessively sucking on ice cubes during the last week. Our doctor told us that it is fairly common for kids who are anemic to suck on ice cubes and also to eat dirt.
Laura, mom to Tyler (8) and Sarah (6); dx 8/24/04 www.caringbridge.org/mo/lpeterswon