I honestly had no idea that Ethan was sick. He is such a fighter! I know he must have felt so awful, but he did not let us know that in any way. Of course, thinking back there were a few signs that he had, but I did not put them together until after his diagnosis.
Here goes... We had a really busy October as a family. I was 16 weeks pregnant at the beginning of the month, and was just over my morning sickness. I remember we had a zoo trip, visited a couple pumpkin patches, had birthday parties for Nathaniel, and went to another birthday party. I think we even visited our family in Arkansas twice during this month which is rare. We also did fun things like bake pumpkin pie and have friends over. I will never forget that because it was like the calm perfection before the storm.
The last weekend in October, on a Friday evening I noticed some bruising on Ethan's arms. They really stuck out to me because they were large, and I had no idea where they came from. I was pretty sure Nathaniel was not hurting him, and we had not visited any playgrounds recently. I took a couple pictures and sent them to my sister-in-law. She definitely thought I should have him checked out. Stefan also agreed that it would not hurt to at least let the doctor see him. Still, I found myself going back and forth on whether this warranted a doctors appointment. I don't know what it is about me, but I never want to see a doctor unless I know for sure something is wrong. Thankfully, God knows more than me, and he put things in place for us to see Ethan's pediatrician the following Monday. If I'm truthful, I know that I doubted my decision to take him up until we were in the doctors office. worst mom ever....
Here are the bruises that I noticed Friday evening.
After noticing the bruises, I made up my mind not to worry the whole weekend. I did google things like what normal bruising for children was. I was doing my best to stay away from googling actual conditions like leukemia. And still, Ethan was not sick so I did not feel like he met the description for that. His bruises definitely were not considered normal though. They were larger than a quarter, and had a raised center. We went on with our weekend. I remember going to Priddy Farms Saturday morning. Ethan was clingy, but that was kind of normal for him. After we left there, I got a text from SIL that a friends daughter was in the hospital just diagnosed with leukemia. I was so burdened over that, and spent the rest of the weekend praying over them. We went to church on Sunday morning, baked a pie that afternoon, and had our friends over to eat it that afternoon. I was showing everyone his bruises. I guess I really did know something was up.
This was their last picture before everything changed in an instant.
Fast forward to Monday. I managed to get Ethan an appointment for 4 that afternoon. Nathaniel was home with us and we did his first day of homeschool. More on that later. By the time I got Ethan in to see the doctor, I knew something was wrong. When we stripped him, he had new bruises covering his whole body. Tiny blue bruises everywhere. We discussed what was going on, and they pricked his finger for a little blood test. I remember sitting in the room forever and texting a few people that we did not have the results back yet. Then a nurse came back and said that the test did not work and they needed to try it again. Ethan wasn't so happy with it that time. It was not too long after that that Dr. Seigel came in and explained everything to me. He showed me the results of both tests and how they ran it twice and it came back the same both times. A white blood count of 66,000 which is extremely high, and I remember his platelet count was 7. His hemoglobin was really low too. Basically, this was classic leukemia presentation. Dr. Seigel did such a great job of breaking this news to me. We love him, and he will be our pediatrician forever. He explained that we just needed to stay put. He was making phone calls, and he would know soon whether we would go to LeBohner or St. Jude. Thankfully, he knew some people and was able to get us right into St. Jude. This does not happen often, and we know it was all God's doing. We left the doctors office with instructions to pack for a week stay there, and get to St. Jude as fast as we could. We had a very sick little boy!
Let me just say that I now know what the grace of God really means now. I do not remember being scared for Ethan during this time. I do remember being seriously scared about the fact that I was 20 weeks pregnant, and how in the world were we going to handle that. I guess because I had Ethan right there with me, and he still seemed ok at the time. And, I had absolutely no idea what we had ahead of us with cancer treatment. Knowing what I know now, if I heard those words again, I would be scared to death! God gave me the most amazing calm right then though, and I think Ethan and everyone around me needed it.
As we left Dr. Seigel's office I had already told Stefan and my SIL. Stefan left work immediately to meet me at home. I called my good friend to pick up Nathaniel and keep him overnight. I called my mom and told her, and I called my sweet mentor to tell her what was going on. I will just say that everyone else was not as calm as I was. I don't even know how I could be calm besides God's grace over me. I do remember thinking that I could not handle everyone crying as soon as they heard the news, and that I hoped they would be more together before they met us at St. Jude. Honestly, they had every reason to cry and be upset. Ethan and our whole family were about to start the battle of our lives.
This ended up being much longer than I expected, so I will continue with our week at St. Jude in the next post.
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