Our story starts a little over five years ago when Thomas was a joy filled 3 almost 4 year old. On February 28, 2010, I noticed tiny red dots on Thomas' face. We had just made homemade candy suckers and used flavorings that listed soy oil in them so I concluded that he was having a reaction to the oil. Up to this point, he had been a very healthy child but he did exhibit some food sensitivities to strawberries, dairy, food dyes and soy which we typically avoided with him. That evening I went to the Tim McGraw concert with my best friend leaving the kiddos home with Joe and Kelly's husband John, On Sunday, February 1st, the red dots were still present and when Big Sissy Cassie gave Thomas his bath that night, she yelled for me to come. Under Thomas' armpit was the biggest, darkest bruise I could imagine. I can still picture it clearly when I close my eyes. We tried to put our fears aside and concluded that maybe all the fun "swinging in circles" Uncle John had done with Thomas during the visit was the cause. However, on Monday morning he had more bruises on his little body. They seemed to be multiplying. I called the doctor and got an appointment for Tuesday, March 2nd. By then I had been reading everything possible on the internet about bruising and came to two conclusions; leukemia or ITP(Idiopathic thromocytopenic purpura). Our doctor wanted to Thomas to fast and have the blood work the following morning. After the appointment, we head off to our homeschool co-op. The bruises just kept appearing and it was really scary to see new bruises literally every hour. I counted over 45 and knew in my gut that something was very wrong. My prayers were more like one word please and cries constantly circling in my head. Waiting was so hard.... The waiting turned out to be the much easier part than the blood draw. All 6 of us went with Thomas to the lab in town to have his blood drawn. Thomas completely freaked out and the nurses and technicians ended up literally pinning him down on a bed to draw the blood. By the time they had finished, he had hundreds if not thousands of little red dots on his body. His crying had broken blood vessels and formed Petechiae. We took him home expecting results in a few days. Joe left for work. I made Mickey Mouse pancakes and started a video to help calm him down. He was happily eating his pancake when the lab called wanting the doctor's office number. I gave it to them and went about cleaning up the pancake batter mess. The phone rang again a few minutes later and this time it was the doctor's office. She told me, I was to call 911 and have an ambulance come and pick Thomas up and take him to the hospital immediately. She said his platelets were so low that he could bleed to death internally if he were to bump himself. I called 911, then Joe, my parents and his God parents. The ambulance ride was awful, he cried the whole way. ER wasn't much better, eventually they moved him to a room. We were told that he did have ITP which occurs when his body attacks his platelets and destroys them. Of course the I in ITP is for idiopathic which means they have no idea what caused it but it is classified as an autoimmune disorder because as in all autoimmune issues the body is attacking itself in some form. They ended up giving him a transfusion called Winrho. However, much to our dismay we learned later that his counts had started rising on their own prior to be given Winhro. Had I known that they may come up on their own, I would have wanted to try bed rest which he was on in the hospital anyways. He stayed Wednesday and Thursday in the hospital and then we were able to take him home. He had to come back every few days for blood draws to check his counts and his activity was severely restricted. It was really tricky to restrict a 3 year old who actually felt really good; maybe a little more tired than normal but he was not in any pain and yet he had to do mostly sit down quiet activities until his platelet counts came up.
I slept on the floor next to his bed for weeks fearing he would roll out and start bleeding internally. His counts went up and down over the next few months and finally in June they began to hold steady in the normal platelet range. The only information the doctors could give as to why this happened was possible "environmental factors". We began many life style changes at that point. We added houseplants to help filter out harmful things in the air, we switched all our plastic place settings, cups, and Tupperware for glass ones. We also got rid of our microwave and started switching to healthier food choices. Every day we were thankful that he no longer had the bruises and seemed to be getting back to his happy self again.
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