Lolli

The past several weeks have been incredibly emotionally challenging for me. We had multiple hospital hang outs, which concluded in a lovely week long stay at hotel hospital. We've been to countless doctor's appointments. My daughter has had blood taken from what can only be every single vein imaginable in her skinny little seven year old arms and hands.

It all started with my child not wanting to eat anymore. If you know Lolli, you know that the girl is the skinniest human being ever, and her not wanting to eat is not really good. That lasted for a week. Then her coloring got awful. Her eyes looked sunken in and terrible. Later that morning, she started throwing up. Not just a little bit, she was throwing up when there was nothing to throw up. She was throwing up things that were beyond possible for her to throw up (buckets of what looked like water when she hadn't had any, and there was no acid in it. And to be honest, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't sat right there with her the whole time and watched it all happen.). By the afternoon, she was bad. She was really bad. She was completely gray. Off to the ER we went. She didn't have a fever. She said her stomach didn't hurt, but she didn't want to eat either. She was just thirsty. Really, really thirsty (something she'd been all week long) and she had a headache.

At the ER, her kidney function was low (dehydration). She was borderline hospitalization, but since her pediatrician knew me very well, (from the triplets' medical needs), and she hadn't thrown up in several hours, he knew that I could take her home and if she got worse I would bring her back. Well, in the car she started throwing up buckets again. I can only guess she was throwing up stuff that had re-collected in her stomach because she had nothing to throw up (or so I thought). Back to the ER we went, and stayed there until about three in the morning.

The next day, she went to the doctor. He took one look at her, and said she needs to go in the hospital. So off she went. She was initially admitted for dehydration. She had no other symptoms other than that she didn't want to eat, and she would randomly get horrible stomach pains and throw up. No fever. No aches and pains. No diarrhea. No sore throat or cough or runny nose.

In the hospital they did random labs (like they normally do) and discovered that her white blood cell count was low. Her bone marrow was actively working to make more white blood cells (which is good) so the concern wasn't that big at that point. Her white blood cells were not freakishly low, but they were low and her pediatrician wanted to watch that. He said it was possible that a virus could attack her white blood cells, but that wasn't very common and they should be back to normal the next day. Well, in a nutshell, they weren't. They were lower the next day. And lower the next day. And the next. And the next, for over a week.

Lolli started to perk up a bit, and she was eager to get out of the hospital, so we asked to be discharged and if we could do all of these tests as an outpatient. Her pediatrician said that was fine. Well that night, from a weak immune system (having very little white blood cells will do that to a person) and having been exposed to all things sickness in the hospital, Lolli spiked a fever. And she looked awful again. She started throwing up in the middle of the night. The next morning we went back to the doctor. He looked at her again and he said, "I think she needs to go back to the hospital." Lolli said, "Will I have to have an IV?" He said "Yes you will." She started crying hysterically. I think at this point the child was just done. She was done with being poked. Done with being prodded. Done with feeling awful. He said he would put her on a lot of medicines and she would have to come back tomorrow. He said because her immune system is so weak, he was very concerned. She had one more night at home, and one more chance for her body to work.

We picked up a plethora of medications for my child. And I have to be honest, watching my always healthy little girl look the way she did was heart breaking. But I was hopeful, that the antivirals, the antibiotics, the anti nausea medications would all work together to keep her healthy. Well that first day, she threw up all of the medicines (because they were very strong). I was scared to call her doctor, but he said a couple of times is normal on such strong medicines. She had one more chance, or she would go back to the hospital. At this point, I forgot to mention, that she was having routine blood draws to watch her WBC (White blood count). So many that they were recognizing and remembering her by name in the hospital lab.

A couple more days went by (where she was stable) and she started to slowly improve. Then one of the days, she all of a sudden had energy again. I told Chief that I thought her WBC count was up. You could sort of tell. I think it was obvious when it went down (she would lose all of her energy) and then when she would get a wave of new ones it would go up again. But this day was different. She had good energy. She was alert. She was different. That day her labs showed her WBC count was normal. Her bone marrow was working extremely hard to make it normal, but it was the first promising blood test result we'd had in weeks. Because they were finally normal, she's able to have them once a week now.

So, we're watching them. It's been incredibly difficult. It's been heart breaking to have conversations about leukemia and bone marrow biopsies about my child to her doctor. It fills my heart with so much compassion for so many mothers who are currently nursing their cancer stricken children at this very moment.

I don't know if we'll be in that group of people. If I trust my instincts, I would say no. I believe that she had a random fluke virus that went hogwild on her white blood cells (Seriously! A virus attacked Grigio's stomach and killed that sucker, so why would it be impossible to believe one would attack white blood cells?). Right now we're still waiting. Hoping for great results and waiting. But thanking God SO much for her strength today. Thanking God for each moment with our children. Thanking God for the reminder that time is SO SO SO precious and we shouldn't take any moment for granted. Thanking God for our children.