How It All Started

I have a lot of people asking about how we figured out something was wrong with Dylan and how everything happened, so this is how our journey began......

On Monday, June 8th, Dylan woke up with tiny little scratches on his eyelids on both sides, in almost the same place. Well, Dylan likes to grab his face, and especially his eyes forcefully, so i did not really think anything of it. That day we visited my mom at NCC's vacation bible school and she said that he looked really white. I did not think that he looked too different, so I did not think it was anything to worry about. The next day the scratches seemed to turn into tiny bruise lines and then there were also little bruise lines underneath his eyes. We went to Erik's mom's house and she too said that he looked a little pale. Again, I did not think anything of it, because Erik and I are the whitest people on earth. The bruising continued through the week and spread across his eyelids and underneath his eyes. It looked like he had two little black eyes. I figured that he really did some damage when he grabbed his face and it was just going through the bruising stages. But then on Friday, the bruising was almost symetrical on both sides and he was really grumpy all day and not acting normal. During this whole week he was also throwing up a lot which the pediatrician attributed to acid reflux. I called the pediatrician's office once again and explained the bruising and nobody had ever heard of it before. She told me to watch it overnight to see if it got worse and to call them the next day. That night, Dylan was really fussy and only happy when laying on my chest, so I decided to read a book. The book I started was My Sister's Keeper--yes, God was trying to tell me something. I started reading the first couple of chapters and it explains how they found bruises on their daughter and how her blood counts were high and the diagnosis--Leukemia!! I looked down at my sleeping son and stared at his bruised eyes, and said, "nah, that can not be it, he is so little". So I really did not think too much of it at that time. The next morning his eyes were swollen. We kept an eye on him and called the pediatrician again. She then told us to go to Urgent Care. By the time we got into the Urgent Care it was about 4pm. The doctor there had never seen anything like that, and said it could be an allergic reaction to something, but did not feel comfortable diagnosing him, so he sent us to the ER at John C. Lincoln. Once we were headed there all of the fears and confusion started to set in. Our parents met us down at the hospital and waited with us while they were doing all of the tests. The doctors asked us a lot of questions regarding trauma to Dylan and if he had fallen or been hurt by anyone. They took a blood test, took x-rays and even an MRI. I was convinced that they were going to try to prove that I hurt him. The only thing that I may have done to him was kiss him too much!! Then the news came. The doctor came in and told us that his white blood cell count was in the 400,000's and should be around 15000. She said that his little body was trying to fight off something HUGE and it could be leukemia or a tumor. I thought that our world ended at that point. She told us that he needed to get transported to St. Joe's because they have an oncology department. Oncology--that is the worst word that any parent could ever hear. I rode with him in the ambulence while Erik and the family followed. I could not believe that a baby could have cancer--I had never heard of that before. I remember just crying uncontrollably in the ambulance just praying to God that they missed something somewhere and were completely wrong with his diagnosis. We got to St. Joes and they hooked him up to every machine possible. We were still in a state of shock. Then we waited. It took about 2 hours for the oncologist to come in and tell us about the diagnosis. It was 1am when we got the worst news of our lives. "Dylan has Leukemia", she told us. The reality of it was unbearable and I almost fell to the ground. I remember just saying, "how is that possible, he is so little?" We called the family and all cried together. My mom had just left, and Erik's mom was still there with us and some of my family was still standing outside at the hospital. We all just hugged each other and cried. I never knew I could cry that much. It hurt so bad. Erik and I had no idea what God had planned with this horrible situation, but we prayed. And prayed some more. We cried and then cried some more. I don't think we ever really asked "why?", but more of "how?", he was just so little and it did not seem real.
That night, they started the blood transfusions right away. They said that if an adult had the blood levels that Dylan's were at, then they would be dead. His little body just acclimated itself to deal with it. I am so thankful that God gave us the wisdom to take him to the doctor on Saturday. We wanted to wait until Monday, but God made us go that day. I am thankful that God had me reading the book the night before to start preparing me for what was ahead. We have seen God working through everything from the start and we know that He has a plan. He alone is in control. He has blessed us with awesome nurses to help us through this journey and amazing doctors who are blessed with the knowledge of how this cancer works. Dylan is in His hands.