Our lives
were forever changed on December 17, 2009.
Several months before, Emma Grace had come down with strep throat, then
severe diarrhea/flu, she often complained about her legs hurting her…all
childhood issues, or so we thought.
Finally, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving we were very concerned
with her paleness and lack of energy and called her pediatrician. They did a CBC, Emma’s hemoglobin was 2.7,
10-12 being average. The doctor told us
to get her to the emergency room ASAP.
Emma Grace stayed inpatient throughout the holiday weekend and was
diagnosed with Parvo Virus, her CBC gave no indication of leukemia at that time
so no Bone Marrow Aspiration was done.
She received 6 blood transfusions and was released on Saturday with a follow-up
on Monday at Mercy/St. Jude Affiliate Clinic/Jane Pitt Pediatric Children’s
Hospital. For the next three Mondays
they continued to do CBC’s, Emma Grace’s counts continued to drop again, and in
other areas. We were informed they
wanted to do a Bone Marrow Aspirate on Thursday Dec. 17th, with
several possible things they would be looking for, still leukemia was not one
of them; however the others were far worse.
At 3:30pm
on the 17th, Emma Grace’s doctor called Mark and I into a separate
room, we knew the news would not be good.
We were told there was good and bad news, the bad news was: Emma has
Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Our hearts
ached, we cried and listened to her wonderful Dr. say how sorry she was and so
shocked with the results. Then I
remembered she had said she had good news…Leukemia is 94% curable. What Emma was diagnosed with was so much
better then what they were looking for originally; it was a much better
diagnoses for Emma Grace. We were given
options on treatment, and asked Dr. for her recommendation: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital….and so
the journey began.
We were
transported to St. Jude late in the night, arriving in Memphis at 5:30 am on
the 18th. Her surgery and
first chemotherapy started on Dec. 21st, 2009. Emma
was put in remission just 7 weeks after diagnosis but Leukemia patients must
finish the protocol treatment to avoid relapse.
We are so blessed to have Emma being treated at St. Jude and even more
to have a local St. Jude Affiliate right here in our own backyard.
After 2.7
years of treatment, 3 hair losses, too many needle pokes to count, over 7
different chemo’s, 2 surgeries, many ultrasounds, ct scans, MRI’s and 18
procedures… Emma Grace finally finished treatment on July 10, 2012. Her sub-Q port was removed August 28th and her Make-A-Wish will be granted Sept. 17th,
2012 to DisneyWorld.
She
literally skipped out of the hospital saying she felt like a normal kid! We
will forever bring awareness to childhood cancer until there is a cure in honor
of all her friends that never had the chance to skip out of the hospital and be
normal.
Emma Grace
Heppner and family
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