On Tuesday, June 18, we found out that Alli has acute lymphoblastic leukemia – the most common childhood form of cancer within the blood. Alli has not quite been herself for the past couple of months. She has been feeling more tired than usual and looked pale. She is rarely sick and if she is sick, it is usually pretty mild. The Thursday before Easter, she had extreme pain in her legs after dance practice. After about a couple days the pain went away, but her low-grade fever she couldn’t kick. We figured she had a flu virus so we brought her into the clinic. That day she was tested for the flu and it came back negative, but we were told if you have a viral infection there is not much you can do besides let the virus run its course. As a parents of four kids, this is not something we have not hear before. After a few more days, the low-grade fever went away, but she was not quite the same. After Memorial weekend, we brought her back in again to see her pediatrician. They drew her blood to test for mono and some other things. Once the blood test came back, her pediatrician told us that we needed to bring Alli to Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis right away because her blood test results were not normal. The hospital took a couple more blood tests over the course of a 10-day period. The doctors were amazed that Alli had the energy for all her dance competitions with her hemoglobin and white blood cells as low as they were. Despite her blood levels, feeling tired and pale… overall Alli was healthy. Al was approved to go to her dance nationals in Wisconsin Dells last weekend. We are very glad she participated because little did we know our lives would be forever change this week. On Monday, we went to Children’s for another blood test and the doctor did not like what she saw and wanted the bone marrow biopsy completed that was already scheduled for Tuesday. After the biopsy, we took Alli home so she could rest while we waited for the results from the bone marrow biopsy. We got a call from her doctor around 1:45 p.m. and we were told that Alli had leukemia. We were then asked to come in right away (by 3:30 p.m.) to talk with her doctor and to get the ball rolling on her road to remission. Alli was hospitalized right away after meeting with her doctor and she received her first blood transfusion to get her blood levels up and prepare her for surgery the next morning. Wednesday morning after another blood draw her numbers were not where the doctors wanted and Alli received a second blood transfusion before she headed to surgery. Her surgery went well – the doctors performed a spinal tap to test for leukemia in her spinal fluid and inserted a port into her chest just under her skin where her chemotherapy, fluids, medicines and blood draws will pass through the rest of her treatment. The good news is that Al’s doctors believe her leukemia is the 90% curable kind, but the road to victory will be at least two years from now. She had her first round of chemo Wednesday afternoon right away along with some other medications that attack her leukemia head on. She will remain hospitalized until at least Saturday and have another round of chemo treatment that day. If all goes well, we will get to bring her home Saturday night so she can sleep in her own bed. Our first victory happened when her spinal tap came back negative for leukemia in her spinal fluid. The next 28 days are crucial as we wage war on her leukemia. We will attack it with the best medical treatments and drugs possible utilizing the expert and caring hands of the medical teams at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis. When we hit day 29, another round of invasive testing will be done and we will be given her road to remission playbook for the next two or more years. We ask that you keep Alli in your thoughts and prayers as she fights her leukemia. We want everyone to know how proud we are of this little girl already for the resiliency she has shown thus far. We will update this page as much as we can to provide everyone with updates.
We just realized we never updated Alli’s Caringbridge page with the great news from last August.
On August 27, 2021, Alli took her last round of chemo pills. Below is the Facebook post we did to celebrate Alli’s fight against Type B Leukemia.
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And she did it - Alli’s last night of chemo pills!!! 👏👏👏❤️❤️❤️ Thank you so much for everyone’s love and support as our little girl fought her battle with cancer! We couldn’t have done it without all of you! We pray her body will be able to produce healthy blood cells and she will remain cancer free!
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