Our world changed on November 12th when our grandson was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL–
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_lymphoblastic_leukemia). The “acute” describes the aggressive nature of the disease. I was floored by how fast things moved. Our five year old (he’d say “almost 6”) was diagnosed on a Friday. They sent him to a major children’s hospital on the same day. Treatment began within 24 hours of diagnosis. They began his treatment on a Saturday. I’ve spent a lot of time visiting hospitals. In my experience it is very unusual to do surgical procedures on the weekend. I was glad they were able to get things started. But I was also very concerned that they thought it necessary to move so quickly.
Alarms were going off in my head. I’ve spent a quarter of a century visiting folks in hospitals and in my experience cancer treatment moves slowly. Usually, a person starts out feeling lousy. They finally go to the doctor. Diagnostic tests begin. Eventually, the doctors decide that it is cancer. A referral is made. Then the patient waits for an appointment. Finally, options are discussed and treatment begins. So, moving from nothing to hospitalization and chemotherapy in a single day boggled my mind.
We were worried. Like other families we waited eagerly for any encouraging words from the medical team. We tallied the risk factors. We took comfort in the ones we didn’t have and tried to ignore the ones we did. We scrutinized the doctors and nurses for clues–dissecting both words and demeanor.
We hoped that the little rascal would be in the group which responded most rapidly to treatment. We settled for being in the standard risk group until the third bone marrow test. That one moved us into the high risk category. There is a higher risk group but missing that designation didn’t comfort us. We had expected better. We were disappointed and trying hard not to be worried.
The little feller left the hospital after about 12 days and joined the rest of his family in the Ronald McDonald House just in time for Thanksgiving. Family friends brought our turkey dinner. I guess you could say we had turkey and dressing at Ronald McDonald’s house.
