Over the past couple weeks we had noticed that Cristian’s belly was becoming more and more pushed out (distended). We thought that possibly this was a digestive issue, posture, or just part of a growth spurt. On 2/17 his belly was distended the most we had ever seen including the top portion below his rib cage.
With this new development, mom felt it was time to reach out to the doctor. Following a remote session with a virtual doctor we were directed to schedule an appointment with Cristian’s primary care doctor. Unfortunately his primary doctor was closed due to local weather conditions.
Not wanting to wait further, we decided it was necessary to go to the ER and identify what was causing his abdomen to be so distended. We were quickly admitted and discussed the issues we were seeing. Cristian has been pooping normally and was not complaining of pain. The ER doctor wasn’t immediately sure as to the cause of the problem so he ordered a blood draw for analysis.
Some time later the doctor came back into the room and broke the news that they found abnormalities in his blood sample and that we needed to be transferred to a larger more specialized hospital. He wasn’t able to say for certain, but he felt fairly confident that this was some form of Leukemia.
As any parent can imagine this is a worst nightmare situation at this point. We were both in shock and crushed by this news, and the rest of the night was a blur between the ambulance transport and admission to the new facility where we were checked in.
Team Cristian 