Late that morning, still in complete shock that my child has been diagnosed with APL Leukemia, I began to let my job and other people in my life in on my reality through text messages because I couldn't bear directly talking to anyone. I was a wreck just looking at Haylee, knowing that I couldn't help her. I went through so many emotions - anger, sadness, guilt, hopelessness - none of which I felt just 24 hours ago. We were told since she was considered High Risk APL, her chemo treatments would start that night.
She began a medicine called ATRA, which is the acid form of Vitamin A. She's never had to swallow pills before so I thought she would have a hard time with it. Surprisingly, she did wonderful!!! The part she didn't like about it was that she had to be woke up to take the pills twice a day - she was kept on morphine on and off for her stomach and head pain so she was sleeping a lot. She was given platelets overnight to bring them back up.
She had surgery to have her central line put in her chest so that they didn't have to keep poking her with needles every time they needed blood (which was every 12 hours) and to give medications. Bone marrow taken from her hip during the surgery and tested to be sure she 100% had APL (which she did). Around 9pm that night, she began her first chemo treatment - idarubicin. With help from the morphine, she slept through it.
WBC - 106,000 - 110,000
Platelets - 56,000 - 94,000
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