[ad_1]
Mom was worried and the doctors calmed down.
“I just want to tell my story because it could help other parents recognize their circumstances and respond faster.
It all started that summer. The son was on vacation with my mother. In the second half of August he called me and told me that he had a lump on his neck, in the area of the lymph nodes. The next day they took the son home. The derivative was pretty good, painless, and actually pretty cool to watch.
We immediately went to the family doctor, who sent us to a hematologist. From him we received a referral for a blood test and a neck ultrasound. Paradoxically, although the blood test was recorded as urgent, the reception had to fight for it. They told us there were no places today or tomorrow. The place appeared only when the hematologist asked nicely, ”Eglė recalled.
The blood test did not show anything wrong, but the hematologist, on a week-long break, for everyone, if an ultrasound examination shows that something was wrong, he prescribed a referral to the surgeon. It’s not hard to suspect that the derivative was found, just what it was was still unclear.
“I could not check in with the surgeon over the phone, after half a day of testing I realized that the call service at that institution was probably completely off. I had to register online; I did not find a paid place four days later, but after registering I did not receive any confirmation that the registration was successful. And the anxiety grew: I read a lot of information about similar cases online, and of course, as a mother, I ran to the worst diagnosis. My loved ones calmed me down, but it broke my heart that it wasn’t good.
Eagerly, I tried to call another institution as well. We had time the next morning, but upon arrival it turned out that there was no general practice surgeon at that institution, only an oral surgeon.
They did the biopsy according to their competence: a special needle extracted some fluid and gave a transmission for MRI images. He was only able to register after two weeks. The response of the biopsy would arrive in 5-6 days. While we waited, I also received the registration confirmation from the first surgeon. There we did another ultrasound and we found inflammation of the salivary glands, ”the woman continued.
The boy’s condition worsened in days.
As Egle told her, she asked the doctor questions that concerned her, even asking if it couldn’t be lymphoma, but the doctor assured her that there was no lymphoma in that area. In his opinion, the MRI was not necessary either.
The doctor said that I would not move where I did not understand. He advised driving home, waiting for the results of “my biopsy” and drinking peppermint tea.
“The doctor said that he would not change what he did not understand. There is something to worry about here, isn’t the boy missing? He advised driving home, waiting for the results of “my biopsy” and drinking peppermint tea.
Sure, I didn’t drink peppermint tea when I got back and I kept thinking about what to do when the child’s condition worsened. The shunt grew visible, the son’s mouth began to melt and became difficult to chew; the tumor probably started pressing on the nerve. Sometimes such spasms occurred that it was difficult to sleep at night.
He couldn’t see everything without doing anything, otherwise it implied fear and a feeling of helplessness. So I decided to register a child for a paid MRI scan. This shortened our wait time by a week. The study confirmed the fears: lymphoma.
Upon examination, we found a pediatric surgeon in accordance with the recommendations. Thank God he accepted us in good faith. Although the first biopsy showed nothing, he repeated the test, with total numbness and a small incision (a piece of tissue was taken). She had to wait another 5-6 days again, and her son’s health continued to deteriorate rapidly. The colic started in the hip area, making it difficult for her to even get out of bed. However, until the biopsy result was available, treatment could not be started ”, said the interlocutor.
The last biopsy already showed disease. It turned out it was not Hodgkin’s, but a very aggressive Berkit-type lymphoma. For this reason, the next day, mother and son met in the Pediatric Oncohematology Department of Clinicas Santara. A month had passed since the first symptoms.
Hearing the diagnosis that this is the fourth stage of cancer, it is small to say that the floor is slippery. Words missing to indicate status.
Because the child’s form of cancer was extremely aggressive, the disease spread for so long that Berkit’s lymphoma was leukemic during the waiting period for studies. On one side of the bone marrow, the spread of cancer cells reached 90 percent. The fourth stage of cancer was named. Fortunately, the disease has given way to treatment and is now under control: cancer cells are no longer detectable.
The doctors promised nothing
The boy is currently receiving the last of his six cycles of chemotherapy. Each cycle lasts five days, then treatment is administered to restore the body. Because the chemistry is strong and with all the side effects: nausea, weakness, headaches, mouth ulcers, hair loss, blood counts, etc. Then the mother and child are released home for a week and return for chemotherapy again. They have lived like this for six months.
Seeing that everything is going well so far, there is less anxiety, but the doctors were open at the beginning of the treatment.
“The complete treatment protocol and all associated consequences, both positive and negative, were presented. All possible scenarios of the course of the disease were counted without any embellishment. We were not promised anything, because it all depended on whether the disease would respond to treatment. or if the child’s body would resist such aggressive treatment as the side effects would occur.
Clearly, hearing the diagnosis that this is the fourth stage of cancer, it is small to say that the ground is slipping underfoot. Words are missing to describe this state. Sometimes it seems to me that even now I don’t fully understand the situation. Everything seems like a dream, the brain does not accept it completely.
However, I bow my head to the entire hospital staff: doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and all the invisible benefactors who entertain children, delight in gifts, and support their spirit.
And my message to parents: when in doubt, do not trust the opinion of a doctor, find another specialist, ask to repeat the tests. Beat, demand and fight for your child. In our case, all the delayed days, not to mention weeks, were incredibly expensive.
It is better to investigate more than less. If I had received confirmation of the disease earlier, perhaps our stage would not have been the fourth, and perhaps we would have had four cycles of chemotherapy instead of six. After all, chemotherapy also has long-term consequences that occur in old age.
Therefore, it is necessary to respond as soon as possible in the current situation of quarantine and containment. I do not think that a single mother or father can tell a similar story about the crossings they went through before the child was diagnosed, ”the interlocutor considered.
[ad_2]
