Finley Freedman Finley

On Monday, July 8 Finley climbed in our bed, as she usually does in the middle of the night, but this time she felt warm. We didn’t think anything of it because she is 3 and often when she gets a cold or ear infection she has a low fever. 

We woke up Tuesday and she seemed fine. We went to the movies and over to a friend’s house for a swim. She only swam for a minute when she got out and sat down and didn’t want to go back in. This seemed a little strange so we took her temperature and she had a fever again. We went home and gave her some Motrin, the fever went down, and went to bed. 

Wednesday, July 10, she woke up with a fever again. But this time she was also extremely tired and curled up in a ball on the floor. I took her to her doctor for an appointment at 9:15am. It was when we sat down in the doctor’s office that I realized her eyes looked pale yellow. Her skin looked pale yellow, she was jaundice. Finley’s doctor noticed this as well. They then tested her blood and said go home for four hours and wait for the results. They thought it might be Hep A or Mono but they tested for everything, trying to rule out some terrible things. 

For four hours we had to wait at home while Finley looked yellow and more tired than I have ever seen her. 

At 4pm on Wednesday, her doctor called me back and asked if I was alone. She said we needed to go immediately to CHLA with Finley. All of her blood levels were off and her liver was enlarged. She told me it could be a number of terrible things. 

Andrew got home and wethen rushed Finley to the hospital where we entered through the ER and they did a couple more blood tests. We sat in a small ER room waiting for the results knowing they couldn’t be good. The doctor eventually came in and let us know she had blast cells in her blood and that this was most likely Leukemia. Around 11pm on Wednesday night we were admitted to the Oncology floor. 

On Thursday morning it was confirmed to us that she has ALL Leukemia. 

Since then it has all been a whirlwind of emotions, procedures, and nurses and doctors one right after another. Finley’s life and ours was set on a new track. And here we are.