Second entry for today, and what a day it�s been. I took B to the doctor to find out if she had strep throat. She was complaining about �something in her neck� and told me her throat was hurting. She�s had a fever off and on since Tuesday, and last night she started having cold symptoms, like a runny/stuffy nose and a cough. And the glands in her neck were swollen to the point that I could see them sticking out.
The doctor did a typical exam. She looked up her nose, in her ears, in her throat. She didn�t see anything in her throat, but did a throat culture anyway. It will be 4-5 days before we get the test results. The doctor also sent us to the hospital lab to get a CBC test. That�s a Complete Blood Count test. She said she wanted to see if it was something viral going on. I thought it was strange at the time, but I wasn�t alarmed. So we went to the hospital and had the blood drawn.
When we got home, I gave her a dose of antibiotics, fed her lunch, and put her down for a nap. When she was asleep, I went online to see what the CBC test is for. Exactly. Among other things, it is the test they do to detect childhood leukemia.
Before I allowed myself to panic, I did a search on the symptoms of childhood leukemia. It seems this disease can manifest itself in a matter of just days. The symptoms are: fever that comes and goes, swollen glands in the neck, stuffy/runny nose, coughing, bruising, painful joints, enlarged liver, loss of appetite.
I only started to panic when I realized that in the past two weeks, B has been complaining of her knees and shoulders aching. She has these bruises all over her shins � more than the other kids, it seems to me. She�s had an on again off again fever since Tuesday. The glands in her neck are swollen, with no sign of anything wrong with her throat. She�s stuffed up and coughing. The doctor spent a lot of time examining her abdominal area this morning. The only thing she didn�t have was a decreased appetite.
The doctor did not tell me she was sending B for blood tests to rule out childhood leukemia. But I knew. I just knew. I was crazy with worry all afternoon. The doctor said she�d call me with the test results this afternoon. I waited and waited, and while I waited, I cried at the thought of what might be. P was helpful, telling me that the occurrence of all of those symptoms was probably coincidental. Logically, I knew he was right. But emotionally, I knew he could be wrong.
At four o�clock I couldn�t take it anymore and I called the doctor�s office. The office had closed at three o�clock. Now what? I told P that I had absolutely no intention of waiting until Monday to find out if my baby is all right, and just as I said that, the phone rang. It was the doctor, telling me the test results showed that whatever it was, it wasn�t bacterial. It was most likely viral. I asked about the blood test, what they were trying to see. She seemed kind of vague, like she wasn�t sure she should get too specific. So I said, well I�ve done a little reading about childhood leukemia. She said, yes, that was her first thought, too. (I knew it.) But she didn�t think the results really indicated that, but that we were going to watch to make sure the glands didn�t swell anymore, and B is to have another blood test in 10 days to compare the results to this one. In the meantime, I have to keep giving her the antibiotics until the throat culture comes back and completely rules out a bacterial infection. At which time, we will discontinue them and just let her body heal itself naturally. That�s about all you can do with a viral infection.
For the next several days, I am going to be watching my child like a hawk. I need to observe every change in her illness, every new symptom, every symptom that goes away. If, in a few days, she stops having the fevers and her glands decrease in size, then I�ll stop worrying a little. That will mean she just had a nasty virus that is running its course. That is what I�ll be looking for.
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