Natalie S. - Quilt Finished in 2007

Born: November 20, 2002

Illness: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Natalies's Story

Written by Natalie's mom Candace in January 2007

Natalie was born on November 20 2002.  She was a beautiful, healthy baby with a head full of black hair.  She was a very happy baby, always smiling and laughing until March 25 2005.  She was not feeling well and had a fever.  She had the fever for three day then I brought her to the doctors office.  The doctor said it sounds like she had an upper respiratory infections and he gave her antibiotics.  She was on a 8 day dose and when she was on her fourth day of the meds she started to feel better so she went outside to play.

When she was playing she fell down and when she got up she was walking funny.  I thought her leg was sore from falling down but she was still walking funny two day later so again I went to the doctor.   He ordered an x-ray of her leg the x-ray showed no broken bones so the doctor said she must of pulled a muscle and just wait and see if it gets better and it did within a few days.

By the time her leg got better she was done with the 8 day dose of antibiotics and she was back to normal.  It did not last long.  About three days later the fever was back.  I called the doctor and he said she just needed stronger meds so that's what we did, a 10 days dose of stronger antibiotics.  Well, after the 10 days she was better but not for long, the fever came back within a couple days and the funny walking came back as well. 

The doctors gave her more antibiotics and I told them she needed a CBC done.  They did it and found out she was anemic.  The doctors said her being anemic was due to fighting off some type of infection and the antibiotics they have her on should take care of the problem.  They never could figure out why she was walking funny.  They were thinking she might have an infection in her bones but wanted to wait and see how she was in a few more days.

Well, in a few more days she was in the hospital with a fever and not able to walk at all.  They ran all kinds of blood work x-rays and CAT scans.  All and all she had been sick for a month before she went to the hospital and she was at the hospital one day and they decided she need to go to Rileys Children's Hospital.  We got to Rileys at about 10 PM Friday, April 29th., by 2 am we were in a room and they were telling me they were 99% sure she had Leukemia but they needed to do a bone marrow test to be 100%.

Saturday morning the test was done and this horrible journey began but with lots of hope and faith and chemo we will beat this cancer.  Natalie has been on treatment for almost 2 years and is doing very well so far.  She is going to be off treatment in July of this year and hopefully this journey through Cancer will be over.