About a month ago, I took Tbomb to the doctor because he had a swollen lymph node beside his groin. He also had these little red spots all over him, which I thought was from rolling in the grass. There were other things- like he was pale (he had been sick) and his eyes were different from his allergies. The doctor took one look at his red spots and ordered blood work and he took a look at the lymph node. The blood work came back and his blood platelets were at 1,000 and should have been at least 150,000. The doctor said he would need an antibiotic for his lymph node, but that he needed to talk to a haematologist about the platelets. He let us go, but said to hang around town and not to let Tbomb do anything that could get him injured. My mind was reeling.
The doctor called me back about a half hour later and told me to take Tbomb to the Greenville Children's Hospital because we don't have pediatric care at our hospital or a pediatric haematologist in our town. This hospital is about an hour and a half away. I grabbed a few things he would need in Walmart, ran by the house to see my hubby and grab a few other things and we were on the way.
It turns out that Tbomb has ITP. Which is low blood platelets and they are not sure what causes it, except for that it generally happens after a child has been sick or had the measles vaccination. The antibodies that are fighting the virus basically get confused and start attacking the platelets.
While this is not a fatal condition, it can be if one gets a head injury because your blood cannot clot. He was on watch for injuries because they didn't want him bleeding. Every time his blood would be drawn, it would take forever to get it to stop. To top it off, he had a loose tooth, so we had to make him not wiggle it.
The first treatment was IVIG they were doing a slow drip to make sure he didn't have a reaction. They gradually increased the speed (like they do with an infusion), he did have a reaction although he was Benedryl. So, they slowed it back down and gave him a steroid. It ended up taking about 24 hours. The next morning, his platelets hadn't increased. They did a smaller dose- same thing.
The next day they started him on a stronger steroid. It took a couple of days, and his platelets finally increased to 2,000. The next day, they were at 9,000 and we were able to go home. He is on a lot of medication but a week after leaving the hospital, his platelets were at 138,000. He's looking good. He has to keep going back and seeing the doctor, but he is doing better and better. Tbomb is still under orders to keep both feet on the ground at all times and not doing anything that could cause injury- no bike riding, scooter riding, running, or anything else overly active. He can't even climb into his loft, so he has been camping out under it.
I want to thank all the doctors, residents, nurses, and staff at the Greenville Children's Hospital for being so wonderful while we were there. There are also a lot of charities involved that help parents and children while in the hospital. One nurse even wore Spiderman scrubs the day after she met him because she found out how much he loved Spiderman. How absolutely amazing is that?
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