Welcome to our CaringBridge for Easton’s website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting. Our sweet six year old Easton has recently been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia T-cell. It all started Monday August 26th 2019. Before then I had recently noticed more bruising on Easton’s legs and the backs of his arms than usual. He is normally an active little guy but it seemed there was more of them popping up. Also, along with the bruising I had noticed these small red spots, first that appeared on his arm. I had thought it was an unusual reaction to a sweat bee sting he had said he had gotten on the playground at school. So I didn’t worry at first because in May he had a reaction that had caused hives which the doctor couldn’t figure out what had caused it (we couldn’t figure it out either). I just thought he was having an unusual reaction to the sting. But along with the bruising I decided to look it up on Google (which every doctor tells you not to do). The results scared me and I told my husband. He said Easton was just a rough boy and was playing hard but something inside of me told me, “No, that’s not it.” The two nights before I took him to the doctor I had woke up in the middle of the night with a gnawing feeling in my stomach that wouldn’t go away. Something just didn’t feel right. I now know this was God’s way of telling me to pay attention. So I had decided Monday morning if his bruises got worse and I saw any more of those spots we were going to the doctor that day. He wasn’t showing any other symptoms other than being a little more tired in the evening when I got him from school which I thought was normal because he just started back. When I picked him up from school that Monday evening I told him I was going to check him out before we went home. He said they were spreading on his legs now so I pulled over into the Walgreens parking lot and looked at his legs. The red spots which I had read about called Petechiae were now all over his body. I called his pediatrician immediately and asked to get him in to be seen and they told me to come right away. At the doctor he was acting like his normal self and he wasn’t hurting so the doctor tested him for Strep and he tested positive. In my head I was thinking “see Jenna you are overreacting it is just Strep.” But I had asked about the Petechiae and told them it wasn’t a hive because it wasn’t blanching (turning white when pressed to the touch). The doctor did think it was odd and said it looked like ITP (Idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura) which also causes the Petechiae. So I didn’t get upset because I thought it wasn’t as serious as the Leukemia result I had seen on the internet search earlier. She then told me she was going to send us to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta urgent care in Cumming for bloodwork. We had to go straight from there to the urgent care. There the doctor at the urgent also acted like it was probably ITP even though I had told her I had seen the Leukemia result on the internet. She said don’t look at the internet. They took Easton’s blood and so we waited for the results. I felt like they were taking a long time and started to feel that gnawing feeling in my stomach again that something was not right. When the door opened the doctor was there but she had a nurse with her and I could see in her face that it was bad. I felt like I was in a nightmare that it wasn’t real. All time stopped. I had said to her it isn’t is it? She shook her head yes. My whole life had changed in an instant. The nurse she brought with her stayed in the room with Easton and his big brother Brooks and she took me into another room. I was in pure shock and started bawling. She sat me down and said we think your son has Leukemia and his white blood cell count is really high. And just like that life had changed in an instant. From there we went to Children’s Healthcare at Egelston and have been here ever since. This site is to update everyone on his treatment and our journey through childhood cancer.
