Day 1 bone marrow procedure

Sitting in a hospital room waiting for results is the worse wait ever. At 8am my mom arrived. Of course Bella was ecstatic to see her 'mania'. At 9am the doctor came in bringing a chair. Not the greatest feeling in the world. Let me tell you. She comes in and she says "We have confirmed it is leukemia. And as far as cancer goes, she has the good one. We all know there is nothing good about it but if you have one this is the one you want." At this point I realize my mom has for a better word lost it. She is sitting with Bella on the couch but is very pale and sweaty. She is having a panic attack. The nurses at this point are slightly worried, so one of them takes Bella to the play room and the other concentrates on my mom. Eventually the doctor starts talking again just telling us what she knows as of now from the blood culture and slide. A bone marrow test has been scheduled for 3:30 that will then give us a definite conformation of the type of leukemia she has which we have been led to believe is A.L.L. - Acute lymphoblastic leukemia. the doctor talks to us for a while, answers a few questions then leaves. There is nothing left to do but wait. We head to the play room to see Bella. She is having a blast with all the attention she is receiving in the play room. Becky arrives soon after and for a while we just watch Bella play, playing with her when she decides it's our turn. Around 10:30 Leo arrives. I rush to meet him we hug and just cry for a few moments. He then goes to Bella and loves on her. After a few minutes I decide it's time to talk about the diagnosis with him. All he knows right now is its bad. We go back to the room and I just tell him what the doctor has told me. He says nothing. He just begins to cry. This is hard for everyone and even harder for him. This is his little girl. The one he fell in love with 2+years ago. The one he has protected since the moment she was born. What do mean something is wrong with her? We are supposed to be a normal family living a normal life. We stay in the room for only a short amount of time. We miss Bella and we just want to be with her. Bella is not allowed to eat or drink so what that means is none of us eat or drink. We just cant when we know she cant Around noon they come in to give her a blood transfusion which takes 2 hours. This she needs because her red blood count and hemoglobins are low. At 2 they start the platelet transfusion that takes about an hour. She must stay in her room while she is receiving these because she must be monitored the whole time to make sure there is no adverse reaction to either transfusion. This is only slightly difficult because she has been awake since 3am and is very tired and cranky. Eventually she falls asleep. So while grandma stays with her, the nurses urge us to head downstairs to get something to eat so that we can keep our strength up. At this point I have a killer migraine and know I can't take any medicine until I eat something. Of course nothing sounds appetizing but I decide on a banana. We all eat but no one likes it. We get a call, she is already awake and asking for me. She is not used to people coming and going and the blood pressure cuff going off every 15 minutes. We go immediately to her. When we get to the room, I take some medicine and instantly get sick. Apparently the banana wasnt good enough. Nothing like puking up your guts in the toilet. At 3 they arrive to take her down stairs for her procedure. They will take a needle and remove bone marrow from the back hip bone area. We are in the wait room for only a few minutes. Many people come in at once. They discuss the procedure how long it will take and what to expect. I am allowed to go in with her while they put her to sleep. Leo can't handle to see her in pain so I become the strong one who must be there for her. She fights the mask but in a moment is fast asleep. I head back to the wait room. 20 or so minutes later they roll her back in. She is still asleep and has an oxygen mask on. That was rough. She looked so helpless and so sad. And there was nothing we could do for her. She slept for the whole half hour recovery time and her vitals looked good so we decided to go ahead and just transport her back upstairs while she was sleeping. Of course 2 minutes into the walk she was awake and insisting I climb into bed with her. She was very hungry when we got up to the room so she ate and drank some water. The pain didn't set in for awhile. But when getting up to pee you could see she was very uncomfortable. We ordered some Tylenol that was disgusting and she would not take. Luckily for me I had some infant stuff in my bag so I gave it to the nurse so that they could give it to the pharmacy to confirm the medicine and give her a dose. The doctor came in later in the evening to check on her and make sure she was doing well. She had not received the results of the bone marrow yet but we would have it in the morning Finally around 10:30 she fell asleep, but of course by midnight she was awaken by the nurses taken vital signs. They do this every 4 hours day and night and is very hard to get any sleep. Tomorrow was a new day and all we felt was a blur.


"For with God, nothing shall be impossible." ~ Luke 1:37