Tessa Barlow Tessa Barlow

Welcome to our CaringBridge 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. 

The beginning of this journey: 
Adam brought Tessa to Maple grove hospital ER in the late evening on 10/17/20 because she had been complaining of stomach pain for several days and it seemed to be getting more and more painful. It was to the point where she needed help walking or really doing any sort of movement because her stomach hurt so bad. She was laying on the couch moaning "ow ! " over and over. We knew that we couldnt wait until morning. 

When Tessa was seen at the ER it was determined that her appendix had ruptured and she had an infection in  her blood.  She was transferred by ambulance to childrens hospital in mpls. 

At Childrens we learned that they would not be doing surgery to remove her appendix because her body had formed a wall to close off the infection as a way to protect itself. In addition to the infection from  her appendix rupturing, Tessa's blood numbers were very low- low platelets, low hemogloben, low white blood cells and low red blood cells. It was all around the best option to treat the infection with antibiotics instead of removing her appendix. She received around 5 blood transfusions to bring up her blood counts. (They did end up removing her appendix a few days later.)

I would like to say this is the end of her health concerns but unfortunatly it is not. There was a reason that Tessa's blood counts were low and the drs suspected that she may have Leukemia. They tested her bone marrow this morning (10/19/20) and this afternoon we received the news that she does in fact have Leukemia. The type is called ALL. It is the most common type of childhood Leukemia. Adam and I are processing a lot of information right now.  From what treatment will look like, how often, what are the side effects of chemo, etc. Our lives are pretty rattled right now. It feels like a dream that we want to wake up from.  The Dr. was very optmistic that her treatment plan will hopefully be effective and even eventually cure her. 

Check out our journal entries on this page if you'd like to stay updated with Tessa's journey. We appreciate everyone's prayers. We are trusting God to give us strength through this trial. God is caring for Tessa. 

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Our home address :  3221 Saint Francis Blvd. Anoka, MN 55303.