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Old Mon May 6, 2013, 07:56 PM
Bolinger Bolinger is offline
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Join Date: May 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 4
6 year old son newly dignosed... Questions

Im new to the forum so Im sure that some of my questions have already been answered. My wife and I feel that we need another form of support other than the doctors. Why not try from someone who is living and dealing with the same things we are. I will try to keep this as short as possible. Mid February my son who is six years old began vomiting and having diarrhea. It was over a two week period and seemed to only happen at night on Fridays and Saturdays. Then throughout the week he was fine. Then again on the following Friday and Saturday, same thing. When he got sick again on we decided that it wasn't a bug and he needed to be seen. That night during his bath, we noticed what looked like hives around his waist band. We gave him benadryl for the hives and took him to the doctor first thing the next day. Because of the hives, his pediatrician decided to do blood work. She called a couple of hours later and said that we needed to pack a bag and get him to ------- Children's hospital which is about an hour away. Looking back we remember a lot more bruises than normal. Then we just thought is was bruises that every six year old boy gets... We were admitted due to his platelets being at 14. We stayed about 3 days, received a transfusion, and were discharged with no diagnosis. A week or two later we were back in the ER and admitted to the HEMOC floor again where we stayed about a week. The Dr was very puzzled every time they came in the room. After several days they did a biopsy and aspirate. The Dr said that he was 99% sure it was aplastic anemia. But again, he was puzzled and said that our son was an "enigma", he didn't fit the typical AA signs. This is what has my mind racing now, but I will get to that in a minute. They discharged us and told us that they wanted to monitor him and continue supportive care. Easter weekend came and we went to Texas to see family. We set an appointment at another Children's Hospital for a second opinion since we were close by anyway. On the way home, we received a call from our Dr in Arkansas saying that they received paperwork from our second opinion and wanted to start ATG the next day. Up until they received the paperwork on the 2nd opinion, the plan had been to monitor him for a couple more weeks and see if his counts would change. We were admitted the next morning and over the next few days he received the ATG's. Since discharge, he has been on multiple antibiotics, prednisone for 2 weeks, cyclosporin, and a few others. Its been 4 weeks since treatment and we are receiving platelets every 7-9 days. His levels will go down in single digits about that time. The Red Blood Cells drop in the 7's after 10-14 days. WBC about 1.5, Neutrophil 3, ANC about 40 and sometimes lower.

Now I get to my questions????? With the Dr saying that he was an "enigma" and didnt really fit the normal AA profile, could there be something we are missing? Is there anything else this could be? Could there be toxins in his blood causing the problem? Would they have tested for toxins like in a toxicology report? Could it have been a medication he previously took? We moved here September last year and live in a newer rental home. Could it be something in the house?

I know typically it takes 3-6 months to see any kind of results after ATG, but should be see some kind of increase yet? So far everything has decreased since treatment.

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give everyone the complete rundown and hopefully get some insight, inspiration, motivation, something. Thanks
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