Of course my first blog is going to be me explaining about how I was diagnosed with Leukemia so you might want to get comfortable...this is going to be a long one!
I really can't pinpoint when exactly my symptoms started because they could be so easily explained as other things but I'm going to just say November of 2015. Why I specifically remember November is because it was Thanksgiving which means eating TONS of food right? Well wrong. That Thanksgiving I piled up my usual amount of too much food and could barely eat it. I got full super quick which is weird because I can usually grow a second stomach for Thanksgiving! So this continued for all of my meals and I didn't think too much of it because I had been working out. Every time I couldn't finish a meal my mom said, "Ivy, your eyes are bigger than your stomach!" but eventually I felt like it had to be something else because I was just grabbing my regular portions of food. Next, my mother and I noticed bruises all over my legs, many different shapes and sizes. However, I have a low platform bed and we were thinking they were just from me getting out of it. That didn't explain the ones on the front of my legs but who goes to the doctor because you've got bruises? I actually joked about it and told people ghost were beating me up at night! If only I knew then...
To continue, along with the low appetite and bruises I was pretty fatigued most of the time but what teenager isn't? So now fast forward to January 2016, when the other shoe finally dropped. I got really sick. Like strep throat, coughing, and lose your voice sick. I had went to a concert and almost threw up there (I was in the front row so I'm glad I didn't because it would have gone ALL OVER THE STAGE) so we thought I caught something from it. My mom and I were thinking it could be strep so we went to a mini clinic to get a quick test. It came back negative. The doctor prescribed me some steroids anyways to help clear it up. During this time I was also having night sweats but that can also just be a symptom of the flu. I had also stopped working out since I was so sick and would quickly run out of breath but was still unintentionally losing weight. Well, I took my round of steroids and other than a lingering cough and night sweats everything had pretty much gone away...that is until the lymph nodes all over my head started to swell up. Each day I would find a new one swollen until practically overnight a node under my chin swelled up to the size of a golf ball. I got an appointment with my family doctor as soon as possible (February 9th, 2016) and told her all of my symptoms. She felt my abdomen and noticed my spleen was really swollen. She also noticed that I had swollen lymph nodes in my armpits and groin. Me being me, I had looked up my symptoms online the night before and thought for sure I had lymphoma. Yes I know they say not to do that but everyone does it! Don't judge me! My doctor definitely knew it was something bad (I later learned that she had years of experience working with leukemia patients and worked with a highly sought out doctor I had at The James) and ordered for an x-ray and blood work to be done at the hospital next door but had given us papers about mono as a possibility.
The hospital was a quick and easy process but only the beginning of many blood drawls that day. Although there was a sad moment when I was getting registered and the lady said they had a record of a baby girl Ivy being born there. I had come full circle. My mom teared up a bit but she was staying strong because we didn't know anything yet. After that we went home, got in our pajama's, and turned on Netflix. We were ready to relax.
It didn't last too long. My doctor had ordered my labs stat so she got the results pretty quick. We got the call from her and she told me that I had no neutrophils (a type of white blood cell that is the first to fight off infections) and that I needed to go to The James Cancer Hospital in Columbus right now. Once I heard that I needed to go to a cancer hospital I was in shock that my fears were coming true and asked her to talk to my mom. Next thing I knew we were on our way to The James. I called my dad to let him know but couldn't answer any of his questions.
Once I got to The James we headed straight to the ER, they took a lot of my blood, and I told many doctors all the symptoms I was having. When they got my labs back they found the same abnormalities. I had 75% Blast Cells (cancer cells) in my body and they told me, my mom, and my dad who had recently got there, that I had Leukemia but were still trying to figure out what type I had (it was Lymphoblastic). They said with that many cancer cells in my body it was crazy I was able to even walk in like I did. After that it was a lot of crying. Mainly between my mother and I. We were scared and we were lost. My dad was trying to stay strong by focusing on me and just kept telling me that I was strong and that I was going to fight this. My mom needed me to know that she loved me but I've always known that. We all knew I had something wrong with me but the doctors had finally confirmed it and it wasn't just the flu or mono. I'll never forget that day. I had never felt more hopeless and beat down until that moment. Everything I was planning to do with my life was over because I had to fight cancer. Now I know my life was not over just on a hiatus but back then I didn't even know if I was going to survive.
It was a long night in the ER and at some crazy morning hour I finally got a room on the 15th floor where I would live for the next month and begin a crap ton of chemotherapy, lumbar punctures, and bone marrow biopsies.
I hope you enjoyed my first blog introducing you to how I was diagnosed with Leukemia! I promise not to do too many super long blog post like this but sometimes I can't help it! If you want to get updates on when I post my blogs you can subscribe on my Home page! Please explore my website and come back for more! XOXO
Also check out my video of the week which is of me giving a speech at The James for a volunteer event making blankets for cancer patients!