Weekend Adventure

Not sure if some of you have heard about our family's visit to the hospital. Our four month old daughter Cadence started getting little red pin-prick looking dots on her face Thursday morning. On Friday the dots appeared more prevalent. When Tif showed up at the station Saturday evening to show me the dots getting even worse and spreading we decided to look them up on the internet. The closest we could come up with as far as a match to Cadence's was petechiae, a term a remembered from medic class but was unsure of their severity. Petechiae are basically broken capillaries. The causes of them seemed to range from no serious problem to life threatening. Since it was at night on the weekend we wrestled with taking her to a doctor. I decided to have Tif take her to St, Mary's by our home. Tif sat in the ER for a couple of hours wondering if this was a severe problem or us just being nervous inexperienced parents. Thank God we went to the ER. Cadence's blood work came back with a low platelet count of 14,000 with normal ranges, I believe, being 150,000-420,000. The doctor was concerned and sent Tif and Cadence to Children's Mercy in downtown Kansas City via the local ambulance. When Tif told me the news around 11:30 pm I took off from work and headed to the hospital in disbelief that something could be wrong with my little baby. I must say I did much praying and pleading with God. Tif, Cadence, and the Ambulance crew showed up around 12:45 am. Cadence did not appear to be in any distress and had normal vital signs. We talked to the resident and nurses on that night with them explaining to us there concerns. Main concern was Cadence's platelet count could get too low for her blood to coagulate and form a clot. Cadence needed an IV so we could give her body platelets, since hers were so low. She was difficult to sart an IV on so a specialist attempted one in her scalp. I must say I have no problem starting IVs on other people, it doesn't bother me but it was difficult to watch her go through the pain and to hear her cry broke my heart. She had no idea why she was being put through the pain. A blood draw was done again and her platelets had dropped to 2000. Earlier the doctor had told us anything below 10,000 was a concern for spontanious hemorrhage. You could imagine how sick and worried Tif and I felt at that moment. An infusion of platelets raised her count to 66,000, still low but safe. Doctors explained to us the next morning their concerns for Cadence. They thought it was strange she did not show any physical symptoms other than the petechiae. She was a little bit of a puzzle to them but their most likely idea for a diagnosis was ITP ( Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura ), which is basically a low platelet count of unknown cause. Other possibilities were cancer and that was definatly a scary word. It didn't help that we were on the same floor with several cancer stricken children. The doctors wanted to start a treatment called IVIG ( intravenous immunoglobulin) which is basically antibodies from hundreds of blood donors. Her blood was checked before IVIG was started and within 5 hours her count was down to 30,000. IVIG had to be infused in her body over a period of 12 hours with nurses checking vital signs every hour. Nothing else can be given to her during this period so we placed much faith in the treatment. One comfort that did occur to us was having an experienced hematologist who knew our family. The doctor explaining Cadence's condition to us had saved Tif's brothers, Matt, life over 22 years ago when he had a severe bleed from his hemophelia. It didn't hurt that he was introduced to us by the resident as the hemotology guru in the KC area. Cadence's treatment was done at 5:30 in the morning and blood couldn't we checked for results until four hours after the treatment. Around 10:40 this morning the nurse said Cadence's platelet count was 119,000. We were overjoyed for our little girl. She did not need another treatment and we were able to leave the hospital a few hours after we heard her results. We still have follow up appointments to check her platelet levels and ITP is something that can reoccur. We have been instructed to watch her for future bruising and petechiae. This was an incredible experience/trial for our family. I feel an incredible amount of love for Cadence and realized I would gladly give anything for her to be healthy. I am so proud of Tiffany who had to go through the beginning of this alone and for her concern for Cadence early on when we could have easily decided to just sleep on it before going to the doctor. I have put more trust in God and realized no worldly possession is of any importance to me compared to my daughter's health. We are home now with Tif and Cadence having caught up on sleep . Please continue to pray for Cadence's future health. Sorry we did not talk to more of you about her but I was to busy worrying about my little girl and didn't feel like talking. Those that did know about her and prayed, Thank You. We have heard there were hundreds of fellow followers in Christ praying for her. God Bless and thank your again for your concern and prayers.

This is an email that my husband wrote and I felt it explained the situation very well. We are even more well rested now and still praising God for all His provision and mercy. It was definatly one of those situations that you "grow up" up through. It was strange to be the parent - all of my hospital expirience has been as a sister or family member. Every time the nurse/Dr./resident/etc. came in they were looking right at us with the news/results/questions. We felt all of the prayers everyone said for us. The Holy Spirit definatly gave me a peace and patience that are not natural for me. Leaving the hospital was the most freeing, wonderful feeling that I have expirienced for a LONG time.