Ruddy’s Leukemia Battle

Let’s help lessen the financial burden for this sweet family as they go through the unimaginable with sweet Ruddy. Elizabeth will be at the hospital for long stretches at a time and won’t be able to work for the time being.

Here is the initial story from Ruddy’s Facebook page: 

“Good morning!! Originally I had decided that I really didn’t want our new journey with Ruddy on facebook. However, I did not realize how blessed we truly are by how many people have reached out to us to check on us. So, I changed my mind and decided that in this situation Facebook might actually be a great way to be able to update everyone on how my sweet baby is doing. I’m sure some of you are reading this wondering what is going on, here is the quick version:

Thursday March 5: At 1 am Ruddy woke up saying “ow” pretty consistently. I went to check on him and he was burning up. His temp was 105.7. ( over the past few days he had been having fever in the afternoons) I was thinking maybe appendicitis because he couldn’t tell me where the pain was, he was just saying “ow”. We knew something was wrong so Joseph and I decided to bring him to Children’s ER because we thought that could be a possibility. By 7 am we found out that my baby boy has leukemia. We would not find out until later that he has AML or Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Ruddy had a CT scan done late because of his eye swelling. They discovered that he has a chloroma (which is a solid collection of cancer cells outside the bone marrow) in the muscle behind the left eye. They decided because of this finding they wanted to do an MRI to see if it is any where else in the brain. Because of the amount of time Ruddy would have to be in the MRI they decided to do it Friday while he was sedated for his other procedures.

Friday March 6: Ruddy went back to have his MRI, and then he was transported to the OR to have a Hickman line placed (this goes directly into the heart and allows for nursing staff to get blood work and administer medications with out him having to be stuck or have an IV), a bone marrow biopsy to help determine his prognosis, and next steps (we won’t have these results until at least the end of the week), and a spinal tap to see if he has any leukemia cells in his spinal fluid and to go ahead and inject chemo into his spinal fluid prophylactically. While trying to recover him after these procedures. His oxygen levels would drop and come back up, and required oxygen. So our oncology team wanted him to be on a higher level of care to monitor him because this was a change after surgery. He started chemo Friday evening.

Sunday March 8th: We were able to move back the hematology/ oncology unit!

Thank you to everyone who has reached out to us, to everyone who is praying for us, and to everyone who is thinking about us! We are so so grateful for your thoughts and prayers. Our sweet Ryanne doesn’t understand what’s going on, so far shes been doing well! They have a child life specialist who will work her about understanding what’s going on. Joseph and I are taking this day by day, or hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute. We are trying to figure out and adjust to our new norm. We have peace in knowing that the Lord has this and him. I will update when I have more answers.”

If you can’t donate, please take time to pray. Specific prayer requests at this time are: 

“Right now specific prayer requests are for “good” dna markers from his bone marrow biopsy. This determines his prognosis. We won’t find this out until end of this week/ beginning of next. For him to continue responding to treatment. For ease of his nausea and vomiting. And of course no blasts or leukemia cells in his blood. And for labs to continue to
look good.” 

We will update as we can! ❤️