Natalia’s Fierce Journey to Forever

January 22nd at 7:10 am, our lives changed. I took my little angel Natalia to the doctor for a check up in regards to some unusual bruising. Blood test where ran and Natalia’s white blood cell count came out at 90,000. Doctors soon informed me that my daughter has leukemia. We were told that there was a bed waiting for us at Marshfield Medical Center in Marshfield Wisconsin. I felt like I was dying and my life had been ripped from me. We arrived and Natalia was immediately admitted into PICU. We faced some initial challenges. The doctors needed to draw blood to run another lab but her veins were too weak to place a line so it took 45 minutes. 45 minutes of people poking and prodding at my 20 month old daughter who was screaming uncontrollably. When that blood test was run, at 11:30 am, Natalia’s white blood cell count had risen to 177,000, platelets were at 13,000 (platelets are what allow your blood to clot. A normal platelet count is about 150,000) and hemoglobin was at 7.2 (Hemoglobin carries oxygen from the lungs to the tissue in the body. A normal range for Natalia’s age is 10.9-15). Hearing these numbers and seeing how fast her white blood cell count had risen made me feel like my daughter was dying in my arms. In the next couple of hours Natalia received a platelet transfusion, x rays, a heart echo, a bone marrow biopsy and a spinal tap to test if the leukemia had reached her spine and it also included chemotherapy to be injected into her spine. By 5:30 pm we received an exact diagnosis. Natalia has Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (B-cell ALL). Natalia spent the night throwing up and ran a fever most of the night, fevers are scary because it is the first sign of an infection. Children with leukemia can get one infection after another because they don’t have healthy white blood cells to fight viruses. A simple cold can put her in the hospital. The next day, January 23, she underwent her second surgery to have her pic line placed and then the first round of chemo was started at 7:30 pm proceeded by a blood transfusion because her hemoglobin levels had decreased to 5.3. I didn’t sleep more than a couple hours, I just paced next to her crib, she was in one of those hospital cribs with the bars and the high sides, looks like a cage to me. She handled that round of chemo like a champ! I was so proud of my little girl but she is feisty so I knew it would take a lot more to knock her down.Thursday and Friday continued to be just a lot of blood work and pumping fluid into her. Natalia was on 3 times the amount of fluids they give to cancer patients because her white blood cell count was so high they needed to continue to flush the toxins from her body. This poor girl had to have her diaper changed every 15 minutes and still wet the bed. It brakes my heart that every time I change her or bath her after chemo I need to be gloved. Imagine being a 20 month old that doesn’t understand what’s going on and now mom can’t touch you without needing to put gloves on. I felt like I was making her stress worse and I fought crying every day because she needed her mamma strong and positive. Mean while inside I’m angry, sad, confused and a whole lot of other emotions. Saturday, January 26, Natalia received her second round of IV chemo and her second round of spinal chemo. To our surprise Natalia was able to go home after her chemo treatment! We got home late Saturday night and Natalia crashed from a long day, whereas mom had to stay up and get laundry done, sort through all the meds she has to receive daily and throughout the day, organize the supplies for cleaning her pic line, ect.Sunday, our first day home, marked a whole new round of emotions. I was terrified if I was giving her her medications correctly then I go to flush her pic line and I couldn’t insert the saline, like the syringe would not budge. I went outside and started bawling, I couldn’t do this! I collected my thoughts and made a call to Natalia’s step mom who is a nurse to ask what I was doing wrong. I forgot to open the clasp. So I took a deep breath and went back in and cleared her line all by myself for the first time. Later that day Natalia got warm and once again I panicked and started thinking the worse. We had this huge snow storm coming and now Natalia was running a fever and her hospital is an hour away. Once again had to cool down and take her temp and she was fine. The whole day was just me stressing that I was going to miss something and kill my daughter. We continue to monitor Natalia’s platelet levels, hemoglobin and white blood cell count. She is considered high risk due to the levels of her white blood cell count (anything above 50,000) and the leukemia is located in her spine. A very aggressive treatment has been laid out for Natalia as we continue to fight. Labs are done in Wausau once or twice a week and chemo treatments are every week in Marshfield. The first 3 thoughts that went through my mind was I’m going to lose my daughter, I’m going to lose my job and I’m going to lose my house. Essentially everything I have fought so hard to obtain and make my life feel whole. I will do anything and everything in my power to make sure my little angle lives through this and that is the only thing that matters. As long as I have my baby girl in my arms at the end of each day for as long as I live, I would lose everything and give up anything for that.

All funds raised will be put into a supplemental needs trust for Natalia. Thank you for your generosity and support during this difficult time.