Diagnosis

How we got here:

It started in early December. On 12/8/13 Sinatra started running a low grade fever and it lasted for several days even with medication, and home remedies. We started to get worried as she also seemed to be lower energy than normal.  We began to notice that Sinatra was extremely tired, which was out of character. So tired that most mornings over these past few days around 8:30 am when Sinatra would normally be playing, she would instead find her blanket, throw it on the floor and fall asleep. This was very uncharacteristic for such an energetic girl.

We called the girls pediatrician Dr. Mike on the morning of 12/10/13.  As always, he was very accommodating and was able to see Sinatra later that day.  After a quick examination the Dr. found that she had an ear infection and a virus that he warned us could get worse.  His instructions were to keep the fever under control, give her the prescribed antibiotics for the ear infection and keep a close eye on her.  We did all of that and it seemed to get the fever under control within a day or so.

Conveniently, we had Sinatra’s 15 month checkup on the morning of 12/13/2013.  During this checkup Dr. Mike noticed that Sinatra had lost .2 lbs. since her one year checkup, which is isn’t good, even though she had a low appetite for the past week.  He asked us to schedule a blood test sooner than later, hoping that we would have results for our follow up appointment on 12/20/2013.  We scheduled and completed Sinatra’s blood test on Tuesday 12/17/2013 in the morning.  No one had told us when the results would be in but we assumed that by the time we reach our follow up appointment we will find out that the problem is a virus and they will tell us to keep an eye on it or prescribe some medicine later that week. 

On Wednesday 12/18/2013 Dr. Mike had received the results of Sinatra’s blood test and called us immediately.  He received Sinatra’s blood test results and stated that her CBC counts were all extremely low. For example Sinatra’s Hemoglobin, which is responsible for transporting oxygen and providing energy, would normally be 11 and it was 4. The platelets, which are responsible for clotting the blood, would normally be 150,000 and Sinatra’s were 12,000.  Dr. Mike said he is getting us a room at CHOC Children’s Hospital and we need to get there immediately. Dr. Mike had informed us that the bone marrow is what creates blood in our bodies and there must be something wrong with Sinatra’s so we need to get it checked.  To get a proper diagnosis we would need to have a bone marrow aspiration (removing a teaspoon of bone marrow from the hip bones) performed.

We got into CHOC Children’s Hospital early that afternoon and the whirlwind begins………..