Rachel W. - Quilt Finished in 2007
Born: March 26, 2002
Illness: Leukemia
Rachel's Story
Written by Rachel's mom Barbara in March 2007
Rachel was born March 26, 2002. Growing up she was just like any other little girl. She loved to play with her dolls and her stuffed animals, go swimming, painting, riding her tri-cycle, and doing all the things little girls like to do.
In March of 2006 she had a surgery to put tubes put in the ears due to ear infections and getting sick. Then during the summer of 2006 we noitced her complaining about being tired, and getting sick about once a month. In August 2006 she was diagnosed with strep throat. She was then given a prescription of amoxicilan. After about 7 days on the antibodic we noticed a ball that looked like a tumor under her arm. Something was not right.
On Monday we set an appointment up with the doctor at 11:30. Monday was going to be a busy day for Rachel. She had a dentist appointment at 10:30 am, a doctors appointment at 11:30 am and then she was going to her first day of school at 12:30. Well the dentist visit went well, and when we got to the doctors office, he did not know what was going on with her so he sent us over to St. Alexis Hospital for further testing. When they did the blood work on Rachel they came back with some bad news. They told us Rachel has Leukenmia and told us they were going to rush her to Lutheran General Hospital.
When we arrived at Lutheran General and they ran some more test. When the tests came back it was positive that our little girl had Leukemia. From that day on her life has changed dramatically. She was no longer just like all the little girls. She was now a very sick child that needed lots of care. We spent 13 days in the hospital. During those 13 days she went through so much pain that it was the worst thing a parent could see done to their child. They poked her numerous times to draw blood, we couldn't take in anymore as parents. We told them there had to be another way to draw the blood from her. So the doctors scheduled her for surgery to put a medi-port in her chest to draw the blood from. Now not only are they drawing blood from her throught the medi-port they were also going administering chemo, and other medicines through the medi-port. Once they started the chemo, she also received many spinal taps, and bone marrow testing. When they went to draw the second bone marrow test and spinal tap we wanted to watch and see what they were doing. Well let me tell you it was not a pretty sight, and we had to leave the room. We couldn't believe they were actually doing this to our little girl.
After the 13 days of pokings for blood, administering chemo, spinal taps, bone marrow testing, petagus shots in her legs, and approximately 5 blood transfusions, she was given the ok to leave the hospital and continue treatments. Needless to say our little princess never made it to school on her first day, in fact it wasn't until almost two moths later where she would return.
Treatments now consisted of going to the office once a week for the next six months for blood counts, spinal taps, and bone marrow testing. She was given several medicines to take from home including steriods. We have a basket that we have set up for her cause it looks like a mini drug store. Everyday she takes one to three medicines a day that she will continue to take for the next 2 1/2 years. We are now on maintenance which is better then what we were doing. We are only having to go twice a month for boold work and approximately every third month will be a spinal tap.
