The big day... take two

Dear Jack

Another bone marrow aspiration today...
This time it would be done in the big operating theater. Last night you were still first on the list, scheduled for 8am. This morning Dr. Mimi told me a little girl had come in during the night who needed to be operated on first, so you would be second. You went in around 10.30am. This time they did a very quick job with the anaesthetics. You were asleep in a matter of seconds. You came out of theater after 20 minutes, which was a good sign. Just like after the first aspirate, I told you you could eat anything you liked afterwards. Goodness me, you ate like a horse again!

Back in the room I noticed they had only done one puncture instead of the double puncture the specialists had ordered. Again a good sign I thought; they must have been able to extract a good amount of bone marrow just from the one puncture.

We spent half the day in the Starlight Express Room where we did some crafting and you played on the Wii.

The doctors came to see us at 6.00pm and brought more surprises. It had been very difficult again to extract bone marrow. No leukemia cells were found but lots of scar tissue. Prof. Marshall said you do not have leukemia. He said one possibility was myelofibrosis, but that is extremely rare in children.

Because we still don't have a diagnosis, he suggested to keep you in hospital until Thursday and take you off the antibiotic drip, then send you home and give you a daily dose of Gcsf, a hormone that boosts your white blood cells, to keep you safe at home. 

Surprisingly, your blood levels had all gone up today. I'm secretely hoping you'll get better without any interference.

One of the play therapists gave you an iPad and you were so obesessed with the games that you hardly spoke to me all afternoon and evening. We made lots of cupcakes together in the afternoon, but when you were still playing games at 10.30pm, I really started to miss my boy.

Love

Mum