Not Where We Want to Be

As most everyone knows Addison had to be admitted to the hospital Monday night. We took her to the pediatrician monday because I was concerned about red dots that were covering her body and severe bruising that seemed to show up with no real trauma causing them. Her socks and diaper were causing her to bruise. The pediatrician did some blood work b/c she suspected it was ITP. We received the blood results Monday evening around 7:30 saying her platelets were around 6,000 and a normal person should have a platelet count around 150,000-200,000. This was critically low and we had to take her to the All Children's Hospital in St. Pete immediately. By the time she was admitted and they took her blood again it had dropped to 2,000. They started her on IV IG that night around midnight. Tuesday her platelets were 1,000. She received the max dosage of IV IG which is once per day for 3 days. It is a tedious process. It takes 4 hours to administer via IV and for the 1st hour they have to check vitals (temp, blood pressure, pulse) every 15 minutes then every hour. Addison absolutely HATES having the blood pressure cuff on. Needless to say the 1st night was extremely long! Her platelets on Wed were back to 2,000. The dr was hoping for closer to 10,000 so they started a steriod treatment as well. Addy's platelets were only at 4,000 by Thursday so they did a bone marrow aspiration to make sure there was nothing else going on. Charles and I were very upset that this had to be done. Getting to the bone marrow can be very painful and it is hard watching your child go through this. We were in the procedure room with Addison and they gave her a sedative and pain reliever. It was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Addison was hilarious on the drugs! She was singing, dancing, yelling Da-Da and flopping all around. It took 4 nurses to hold our strong little baby girl down then they gave her extra drugs because the 1st dose didn't seem like enough! Thank God the results came back from that normal so we don't have to worry about any other possible problems. It is definitely ITP. Thankfully ITP is not a life long problem that Addison will have to live with. Once her body rejuvenates her platelet count she should never have to go through this again. Research believes ITP is brought on by having a virus and as the body works to fight off the virus it also develops antibodies against your platelets which causes your body to destroy platelets as soon as your marrow produces them. This morning her platelet count was at 6,000 so the Dr believes she is on the up swing it is just taking Addison a little longer than she would like. We are keeping our fingers crossed for a 10,000 or better count tomorrow so we can finally go home. I must say this hospital is absolutely WONDERFUL! They have been so great to us and making sure Addison is as comfortable as she can be. They have a great playroom and a girl who comes around to do music therapy with the children. We are on the hemotology/oncology floor and we are so blessed that ITP is all we have to deal with in comparison to some of these other children.

I will post a slideshow so you can see her enjoying her stay! We also want to thank everyone for their tremedous support, love and most of all prayers. This has been a very difficult experience for us and we truly appreciate everyone. We couldn't have made it through without you! We love you all.