How We Found Out About Bennan’s Diagnosis

On May 22, 2021 We woke up for a fun Saturday that turned out to be one of the scariest days of my life. Bennan had a baseball game first thing that morning. At baseball he sat on my lap the whole entire time and cried because he did not want to play. This was something he had struggled with for the past couple weeks leading up to this day. We couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to play. He also hadn’t wanted to ride his dirt bike and was acting a little lethargic the prior couple of weeks. I thought maybe he was growing and needed extra rest or it could have been from how crazy busy we were at that time. But the lack of interest in his dirt bike and baseball was very strange. At his Birthday party on May 2 a friend noticed he looked a little pale. We thought maybe he was dehydrated and needed extra water. We made sure he was hydrated and ate some food and he played on. The following weekend we went camping for his birthday. Him and I were walking back to camp up a hill from the lake and he complained that his legs were tired. I thought that maybe he was just exhausted from being in the sun and playing so hard at the lake. But of course it popped in my mind “what if something is wrong?!”.

Fast forward to baseball on May 22.. he was crying in my lap, skin looked yellow and dark circles under his eyes. At that moment I knew something was not right. I asked my friend who is a nurse if I should take him to urgent care or ER. I was thinking maybe he was anemic. Maybe he would just need to take some iron supplements and be all better.

I took him to urgent care and they knew something was not right just by looking at him when we walked in. The doctor walked in and her jaw dropped. First thing she said to me is “you will end up at Sutter Downtown tonight”. ..they hadn’t even taken his hemoglobin test yet and she knew something was majorly wrong.

His hemoglobin came back a level 3 which should be around a 12. She said we didn’t have time to wait in the ER so she called over to get us through the door. A nurse wheeled him across the street in a wheelchair chair, I had a big red paper as our “golden ticket” to get in the ER. As we were walking to the ER I called Parker to tell him that he needed to find someone to watch Cora and I needed him to come ASAP.

We got to the ER and they started all kinds of tests. The worst part was putting the IV in. I had to snuggle on the bed and wrap my legs around B to hold him down for the nurse. He was screaming and saying “don’t you dare, don’t you dare”. It was awful. They did a blood transfusion in the ER and after a few hours transferred us to Sutter Downtown. At that point Bennan had perked up a bit from getting the blood. He chatted with the EMTs the whole way to Sacramento. They were laughing and joking, it was truly amazing to see him in such great spirits while going through something so scary and traumatic.

Some of his testing came back that evening and the doctor said that they did not think it was leukemia because of his white blood cell count. At this point we were racking our brains of what could be causing the loss of blood. Everything from the amount of milk he consumes in a day to maybe molds or something toxic in our house etc.

The doctors decided to do a spinal tap with bone marrow biopsy to find out more info.

After Bennan was recovering for a while the doctor came in to talk to us. I’ll never forget that moment. That room (which we still end up in from time to time), Parker and I both had our hands on Bennan as he was slowly waking up from Anesthesia, the doctor leaning himself against the wall preparing to give a family horrific news.

He said “ I did a smear and it’s Leukemia”..

“We are sending it out for further testing.”

Parker put his hand on mine and I went numb.

I cried but was in so much shock and denial and couldn’t feel a thing. All we wanted to do was squeeze our baby boy and never let go.

Worst day of my life.

We are almost four months in.. let me tell you.. I Never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever say I’m grateful for the Leukemia that he does have compared to what he could have ended up with. My son is the strongest person I know! Who knows how long he was feeling so shitty for. He is a kid with a lot of energy, a lot of strength, a lot of willpower. He is here to fight this battle and he will come out on top!

We are grateful for our blessings during these trying times.

We are grateful for all of the love, support, good thoughts, prayers, and check ins. Thank you all!

I wanted to share this because I want this to be a lesson for everyone. Don’t wait, if you think some thing is off with yourself, your spouse, your child, your animal, get checked out! It won’t hurt to just go. Also, I want this to be a lesson to live your life every single day to the fullest because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Hopefully another great day but life can change so quickly.