Khalid A. - Quilt Finished in 2008
Born: July 6, 2005
Illness: Neuroblastoma
A Thank You From Abigail's Family!
October 16, 2008
We did recieve the quilt and it is even more beautiful than the picture could have ever told. I will be sending a picture to you really soon things have just been so crazy. Thank you so much.
Khalid's Family
Khalid A.'s Story
Written by Khalid's mom Danielle in September 2008
Khalid was born on July 6,2005. He was a happy little 7lb 6oz baby boy. He was (and still is) so beautiful. At the beginning of March he started not feeling well. He had been a little clingy in the months prior but nothing out of the ordinary for a 2 year old . We became increasingly worried as he stopped eating as much and was just laying around. He also had a low grade fever that would come and go throughout the day with or without tylenol. I gave it a few days because I figured he would present with runny nose or a cough or anything that would indicate the flu or a cold or a virus but it never happened. In addition he started to look "gray" and was getting thinner. I made an appointment with his pediatrician for March 18th,2008 and I told her that I brought him in because he really had no symptoms he was just lethargic and not eating. She looked at how fragile and sick he was and realized that he wasn't the same Khalid who I usually brought in. On a gut feeling, she decided to do some blood work on him and have us come in the next day. My husband took him in the next afternoon while I was at a prenatal visit, Donna and the doctor were present and told us that his blood work had come back that he was a little anemic but nothing was out of the ordinary but they still didn't feel right so they sent us to the Hospital (about a 30 min drive).
Our first experience at the ER was not completely pleasant. I had to keep my husband off of a dr who had decided based on xrays that Khalid was constipated (though I told him he hadn't had a problem with the bathroom until the day before we came to the ER). It wasn't that he had read the x-rays wrong becasue most doctors would have thought the same. The anger was with the fact that while I was giving him the history that he asked me for, but he was too busy watching "Jimmy Neutron" to even hear what I was saying. His new name if I ever see him again will be Dr. Neutron.
Well we went home happy that there seemed to be an easy fix to this and proceeded to try dissovable stool softeners to get him to be "regular again" After 6 days of no improvement and my mother-in-law calling us to reconfirm that he looked really bad. We rushed home. I called the doctor practically in tears telling them that he still had the fevers and no constipation. The doctor sent us back to the hospital telling me to demand a CT scan and a surgical consult. God was with us that night. On March 25th at about 8 or 9 pm we walked into the ER. We were called to triage within 5 min and were immediately taken to a room. The doctor came in. He listened and said " I believe you. We'll do an x-ray and if we don't find the problem on the x-ray we'll do a CT scan and if we don't find anything on the CT we'll admit him and keep him until we find what's wrong" and that is what he did after the x ray he ordered the CT. I remember seeing a group of doctors and nurses standing around a screen and praying that it had nothing to do with us. A little after midnight the doctor walked in, closed the door behind him and turned off the tv. I'll never forget the look on his face as he walked into the room and gave us the news that launched us on to our present journey. That horrible 6 letter word. CANCER
To date, August 6,2008, Khalid's little body has endured, an echocardiogram, 4 abdominal x-rays, 4 CT scans, 1 bone scan, 1 mIBG scan, 1 renalgram, more blood tests than I can count, 3 blood transfusions, 1 platelet transfusion, 2 minor surgeries(one with a bone marrow aspiration) , a second bone marrow aspiartion, stem cell pheresis, 1 major surgery(8 hrs of it), and 6 rounds of chemotherapy, 1 additional admission for fever, and is currently undergoing a stem cell transplant.
