His original diagnosis was on 8/2/2020 when Lachlan was just 4 months old. He completed treatment and “rang the bell” on September 27th, 2022, then relapsed 3 short months later on 12/20/22.
Initially, we thought Lach was just fighting a stomach virus that the family had all gone through the week prior only it was hitting him a bit harder since he was so tiny. About 36 hours in, he started to seem lethargic and stopped wanting to nurse, so we took him to the ER thinking he needed fluids. Within 30 minutes at the ER, they told us they wanted to airlift him to the Children’s Hospital, where we discovered that he had ALL and was basically in complete system shut down as the cancer cells overwhelmed his tiny body. His lungs were failing, he had bleeding on the brain and near constant sub-clinical seizure activity. His white blood count was over 1 million, which was nearly twice as high as the most seasoned nurse (26 years) on the oncology floor had ever seen. He became known as the Miracle Baby in both the PICU and HEM/ONC floors as well as in the sedation unit.
We suspected that he had relapsed when he had some bruising on his legs – which is normal for a busy 2-year-old. The difference was they weren’t resolving as quickly as we would have expected, so we sent a pic to his doctor. He sent us for blood tests, just in case “though it’s probably nothing.” Praise God that he did. That blood test showed 53% blasts and by the time we got checked into the ER a few hours later, they were already up to 75%.
Lachlan has 3 older siblings. They were 5, 9, and 7 when he was first diagnosed. Because of the severity of his illness, we have spent the majority of a full year in the hospital with Lach, in total. That means that we’ve essentially lost a full year of our kids’ lives that we can never get back. We all have anxiety and PTSD and so many other issues that stem from being separated like that and the uncertainty of Lach’s future. We were very blessed in that we had family that was willing and able to come to pick up the “bigs” at a moment’s notice so we never had to worry that they were being loved on and taken care of, but of course it isn’t the same.
And the original diagnosis was at the height of Covid restrictions so they couldn’t come up to see us at the hospital, either. For the first few weeks my parents would bring them once a week to meet us for dinner (they lived 2 hours away) and my husband and I would take turns going down to the seating area to see them, but then the seating areas were all closed so we couldn’t even do that. Truthfully, it has been incredibly difficult for us to heal as a family. We have been doing our best to help the kids work through their emotions, but the uncertainty never goes away so it is tricky.
Lach is just incredible and he has touched so many lives with his fight!
Hope session by Noemi Binagatan Photography | Facebook | Instagram