Well, we’ve had an interesting 24 hours. When we arrived home Sunday afternoon, I called mom to check on the kids and tell her we would be there soon to relieve her of her duties pick them up, and she informed me that after Aunt Jessica and Emery finished playing a game of “tickle me under the chin” there were some strange looking marks on his neck. As she described them to me, I knew they were the same markings I had seen on his back before we went out of town.
All day Monday I looked in medical books around the house trying to remember the name of what I thought I was seeing on my son’s body. Then I finally found it: Petechiae. At this time last night I was doing a massive search on my computer to come up with a reason of why he might have it.
My first reaction wasn’t good as Petechiae is listed under “Life Threatening Rashes” and it was suggested that a child with this sort of skin problem should be seen immediately by a doctor. I decided I was going to take him to our pediatrician today and when he got up this morning, I found even more spots on his stomach and thighs.
We got to our appointment at 2:30 and saw Dr Hutchins right away. She was so wonderful and took so much time examining him, but she confirmed my fears when she said she wanted me to take him to the hospital as soon as I left her office for them to draw blood. “What are you looking for?”, I asked. Then she said the word I have never wanted to hear ever since I gave birth to Savannah. “I want to rule out Luekemia”, she answered.
She kept reminding me that although it’s rare, Petechiae can be caused by a virus and the bloodwork will be able to tell us if it is viral or not. So I took him to the hospital and then we waited for the call to hear the results.
The first call I got from Dr Hutchins basically told us what we already knew. His platelet count is very, very low. But, on the upside, his red and white blood cell counts are normal. This would suggest that there is no tumor or cancer present, but it doesn’t explain the low platelets. So she had a call in to a pediatric hematologist, and we were waiting again.
Once he called her, she spoke to me again but still did not have any definite answers. More than likely, he said, it is a virus. The only way to tell is to have more blood drawn in a couple days to see if the counts have gone up. If they have not, we will be referred to him for more testing. In the meantime, if Emery gets a fever over 101 or he starts bleeding in his gums, we need to rush him to the ER immediately.
While I have been rather calm today despite all these unanswered questions, the luekemia is still on the back of my mind. Dr. Hutchins was still unable to rule that out completely, but she did say that if it turns out to be cancer, we have caught it very, very early and that is a really good thing. So if you are reading this and would like to send a prayer up for us, we are praying that God’s hand be on little Emery and that He would be in control of the whole situation.
Amen!
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