Bone Marrow Biopsy and other tests

Won't bore most of you with much detail as it's been an ongoing saga since January!

Basically my DS could no longer stand by himself and it was discovered early Feb he had a right hip bone infection. After 10 days on Ab's through a PICC line, he was sent home and on oral Ab's for another month. He had to come off those as his neutrofolds (sp) - ie white cell count - were dangerously low and couldn't contend with the Ab's. Weekly blood tests since then, until 3 weeks ago when we were released and just had to come back for a test the other day to make sure all was well.

Well it's not. At all. Have just talked to the doc who is very concerned that his neutrofolds have gone lower than what they were at the beginning of his infection (infection has gone now and he's walking fine). They now need weekly bloods for at least another 6 weeks, to do whole lot of blood tests on Wednesday (which is always a mission) and he's also booked in for a bone marrow biopsy.

I don't really know too much about them except the big needle in the back or hip and he needs an anaesthetic obviously. Does he need a general or local? He had 2 while in hospital and didn't have much trouble with the general so that's good. Has anyone been there, done that?

The registrar did emphasise to me that while they were testing for cancer etc, they were not looking at that as a possibility. More possibly it's an auto-immune disease .

As you can imagine I'm a wee bit emotional at the moment (don't think the hormones help). To make matters worse DH is only home for the next 3 weeks then he's away for 3 months. It's been a long battle and it just doesn't seem to be ending I never once cried the whole time we were in hospital because they knew how to treat him etc but this has got me really worried

so any advice, or just words of wisdom would be fab.

Aww hun that must be such a worry for you!!!  I hope your gorgeous little man is ok!

 

No words of wisdom here unfortunately either, but lots of hugs, we'll be thinking of you and wee Jack.

Oh no, actually, I take that back - my only words of wisdom: GOOGLE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND!

I have a dreadful tendency to google things like that and you always get the worst case scenario with no context and all it does is freak me out.

for you and your family. I know how hard it is having DH away with one baby, so I can only imagine what it must be like with a sick baby, pregnancy and all that worry, I hope you have good family & friends to support you.

How scary for you, I don't have any advice either but will be thinking of you guys.

I have no words of advice but from us too:(

Oh such a stressful situation - hugs from me too.

My only advice is to have plenty of good cries to help let out the emotion.

They do a bone marrow biopsy with a local in adults, but I'm not sure in children. (Sorry that doesn't help much).

I'm sure the hospital has said this already, but while your lovely boy's neutrophils are low, it might pay to keep him away from sick people (i.e. tell friends and family to stay away if unwell).

All the very best

No advice from me either, but hope it all goes well.

Yeah DJ they said to stay away from people that have meningitis etc lol - basically most other things kids have are viruses so they won't affect his levels.

Seems he's caught chickenpox now too (which again is a virus) but just means he's susceptible to other illnesses while he recovers from that! When it rains, it pours!

I wonder if him getting chicken pox is immune-system related? I wondered the same thing when lil miss got it really early on coz she'd had a long run of viruses and bacterial infections. The doc at Starship said it was unlikely to be related coz it's viral, but the gremlins immunologist said it was possibly related to an immune deficiency as the gremlins fall in that category.