Day: June 17, 2010

Hospital Adventure – Day 1 AM

DSC00296The good folks at Vancouver Children’s Hospital have a guest WIFI internet hotspot, but I can only see web pages and cant get e-mail (for the techy people all extra ports are blocked so I can’t even see webmail – I can however get e-mail on my blackberry). So now that we know what my connection environment is like, i’ll proceed with an update.

We made it into the hospital last night after some bad results from a blood test in the morning. We got here around 8:00PM and found an almost empty emergency room. We were seen right away, but it was a bit of hurry-up-and-wait. We had a few check-ins with triage types and then were sent to a small treatment room to await an actual doctor.

The first doctor was a resident and gave us a bit of a roller-coaster emotional ride. He told us that the blood work test came back positive for mono-nucleosis and going through the list of symptoms, said that all of them could be explained by mono, but were a-typical. I really felt strongly to stay even keel and that we weren’t done yet, so I opted out of the roller coaster.

They took a bunch more blood to redo the tests and do a few more. After a fair bit more waiting, the hematology / oncology doctor came in and discussed the results of the tests and the results were the opposite. He was quite sure that they were leukemia blast cells and that the mono was probably a false positive. In the end further tests confirmed this.

A few numbers:

  • A normal person has a white-cell count between 5000 – 10000. Angelica is 18500. Adult leukemia (different than in children) presents upwards of 50000.
  • Angelica had a low red-cell count yesterday morning (don’t know how low) and it came up to 85 last night. It was down at 55 this morning, but the doctors are not worried about that at all.
  • The biggest concern is platelets. A normal person has a platelet count around 125. Angelica was at 9 last night. She has received a platelet transfusion overnight that has brought that number up to 40, but they need it to be above 50 to do a marrow biopsy. (Platelets are responsible for starting the clotting process and not having them means that when you bleed, it wont stop.)

Angelica is doing really well. We had a good talk on the way in to the hospital about what to expect and what it means to have faith and what leukemia is and the fact that doctors speak about the facts and statistics and that we can focus on those or we can focus on what God says the outcome will be. She does tend to process internally and so I am keeping an eye on that, but I honestly believe that she has no fear. She’s an amazing girl.

Also of note, Patti is about to give birth to #5. This is significant in that there are some treatments for some types of leukemia that involve stem-cells from a new-born umbilical cord and placenta. We had been planning on having the baby in langley, but Women’s hospital is next door and the maternity ward connects the two hospitals, so patti is talking to our midwife about that right now.

Angelica Update 6-17-10

Jon and Geli got into Children’s Hospital last night and finally got moved into a room around 2am.

We signed off to get some sleep around 2:30am and I’ve not heard from them this morning.

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There was some initial confusion regarding the blood work and it looked like it might not be leukemia, but rather an atypical form of mono.

After some more tests, and a meeting with the Hematology/Oncology Doctor, his initial feeling is that it is a type or form of Leukemia that we are fighting against.

Her platelets were low enough last night that they gave her a transfusion over night. She also had her blood work re-done and had an x-ray.

The plan for today, as of last night (or early this morning), was to do a bone marrow biopsy and to test some of her spinal fluid. Both of these tests should bring more answers.

There has been some discussion with the Dr. at Children’s about the possibility of using Cord Blood from the baby to help Angelica and we should know more on that today.

It’s not something that we had thought about or looked into or planned for and so we need grace and wisdom and the timing of everything to work out perfectly.

I have an appointment with my midwife this morning at 10am and obviously will have a ton to discuss.

We will continue to update and let you know where we are at and we so covet your prayers at this time.

Things to pray for:

Angelica seems way too calm according to the staff at the hospital. She has a tendency to process her feelings and emotions very slowly and so we are just praying for her that she will be able to process all that she is going through and not stuff her feelings and emotions. Please pray for health and strength both physically and emotionally as she walks this road before her.

I’m feeling extremely emotional and try though I might I can’t seem to stop crying. Physically, the baby was moving a ton last night and so he seems quite happy. I am needing to be at peace and to be able to be confident that none of this is a surprise to God. Pray for perfect timing for the delivery of this little one and that all the details would be sorted out smoothly and in His perfect time.

Xandra and Jeremy are both upset and processing what all of this means to them and to their sister and to their family and they are doing so on an 9 and 12 year old level. Please keep them in your prayers as well.

Siah seems blissfully unaware at this point.

We could use prayer for all our family/friends as this is their Grand daughter, niece, cousin, friend and the uncertainty can be stressful.

Health and Peace, Faith and Wisdom! Those are the biggest things that we need right now…….thank you.

11:30am update:

Home from my midwife appt. Things look okay with me and baby. Wheels set in motion to be ready and able to collect cord blood. Geli had to receive another platelet transfusion as her counts needed to be above 50 to do the bone marrow biopsy and they were up to a 40 from the initial count of 9. So she’s received the 2nd transfusion and they are waiting on the numbers to proceed with the biopsy.