Catching Up

picture of sadie when she first started appearing sick

So for those of you that don't know the whole story, or do but not all the details, I will catch you up to this point and how we got where we are today. Back it mid-January of 2011 Sadie contracted the H1N1 virus. She ran a fever for 10 days straight before she finally kicked it. Although she healed from this, she was never the same since. Prior to the H1N1, she kept coming down with illneses and infections that would not fully go away. I had taken her to several physicians and several hospitals with no answer as to what was wrong with her. Doctors contributed her symptoms to her acting out for attention, anxiety, depression, growing pains, and one doctor even blamed mine and mikes(her father)marital problems for the way she was acting. She had blood taken and we were told she was fine, only to later find out that the blood was discarded and never ran for any tests. At one point Sadie started walking with a limp and then completely quit walking altogether. She looked awful, she had no color except the black circles under her eyes and the red spots all over her body. These red spots I learned were broken blood vessels called petecchiae because she had little to no platelets in her blood. Without these, her blood had no ability to clot and she could have started bleeding internally and out the openings of her body (ears, mouth, rectum, etc.). They were so low that a mere touch would cause severe bruising. She had horrible joint pain and nightsweats. Unexplained fevers and fatigue. She napped several times a day, yet she was doing nothing to exert herself. Still with all of these symptoms present, mike and I were pushed away with no true answers. On February 23rd at two o'clock in the morning I was laying in bed listening to her moan in her sleep. It hit me like a rock that something was seriously wrong with my baby and if I did not figure it out, we would lose her. I grabbed my phone and started researching the Internet like I had been for months and I came across the word leukemia. After I read it, I knew that my baby had cancer. I sent mike a text to the link of that website and said we are taking her in and not leaving until we get some answers, our Sadie girl has cancer. He readily agreed and we took her to cardinal glennon. A simple blood test showed that Sadie had leukemia. By the time she was finally diagnosed, 80% of the cells in her body were cancer.