Theo Prive

First post: Sep 3, 2017 Latest post: Oct 9, 2017
On August 30th, our  world was rocked.  Nate took Theo to the pediatrician to check a small red bump on the top of his head that had not gone away after several weeks.  We also noticed some bruising on his lower legs that appeared the week before.  The pediatrician ran a blood test and his white blood cell count was alarmingly high.  The normal range for a baby his age is 5,000 - 10,000.  Theo's count was 113,000.  The pediatrician told Nathan it could be Leukemia, but I refused to believe that something like that could happen to my baby.  We were sent to USA Children's and Women's Hospital in Mobile immediately.  We were admitted as soon as we arrived and given a room in the PICU.  This all happened so fast that we didn't have time to process what was happening.  I didn't fully understand the severity until I realized that we weren't going home.  They hooked Theo up to monitors and took blood to send to the lab.  At the end of the first night, the doctor came in to give us the news we were praying we would not hear.  Because his white blood cell count was so high, there was no chance that it was just a virus or bacterial infection that he was fighting.  It was much more serious.  She was able to determine that it was Leukemia by examining his blood under a microscope.  We were absolutely devastated.  The next day we were told the official diagnosis - Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL).  They also performed (under sedation) a bone marrow aspiration, inserted a PICC line in his scalp, and administered the first dose of chemotherapy via lumbar puncture.  His white blood cell count went from 119,000 at it's highest  to 35,000 the day after receiving the first dose of chemo.  By this morning (Saturday) his count was down to 2,000.  Never in a million years would we have thought this would be our path.  It just isn't fair that our sweet, innocent baby boy has to go through this.  We will be staying in the hospital for at least a month while Theo undergoes the first round of chemotherapy, or the Induction Phase.  With our faith in God and the support of so many of our family and friends, we will get through this! 

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