Auroras fight against leukemia
Donation protected
As many of you may know our four month old Aurora Michelle Farris was admitted to LeBonheur children’s hospital in Memphis, Tn on the afternoon of July 15, 2023 for a fever and swelling in the eyes and severe dehydration. After three hours and 14 attempted iv’s later they finally went in through her head and were finally able to start her on some fluids and get her stable and bring her fever down. The doctors started running numerous test and after several more hours the doctor came into our room at 2 a.m with news you’d never expect to hear as a parent, “Your daughter has traces of leukemia in her bloodstream, she has cancer.” An infants white blood cells are supposed to be in the 7,000 range Auroras white blood cells were sitting at 260,000. At that very moment our lives were completely flipped upside down over the course of twelves hours she was started on a low dose of a chemo based medication to start combating the cancer immediately had a pick like ran into a mane artery next to her femur and had swelled up half her size. The worst part of this was seeing the happiest and most full of life baby you’ve ever seen go downhill so fast, the doctors told us if we would’ve waited twelve more hours from when we brought her in Aurora would not be here with us today and it would have been fatal…. A couple members of St. Jude children’s research hospital came to visit us at LeBonheur and kind of gave us a layout of what to expect over the next few months. Finally at 5:40 p.m July 16th we were transported to St. Jude’s icu where we spent the next week. Over that week Auroras had swelled from 14 pounds to 23 pounds and was almost to the point of unrecognizable, it was devastating. Just in the first week of chemo Auroras white blood cells dropped from 260,000 all the way down to 2,000 and there were no traces of the leukemia in her blood that was detectable. Finally after four days in icu we were moved to a floor and placed in a room where we would be staying for the next couple months. On July 20th Auroras was put under for the first time to receive a port in her chest and for a bone marrow extraction at 9 am, at 11 am we were called down to the operation waiting room and were told Aurora almost bleed out due to low platelets while they ran the port in her chest but they had her stable and she was okay she received blood and more platelets and then they resumed with the bone marrow extraction. Finally after 7 hours of waiting for what was supposed to be a hour operation we were called down to recovery to be there when Aurora woke, The next few days were rough with the pain and soreness of the procedures done to her but she endured and pulled through. On July 25 her swelling was finally gone and she was back to her normal self and looked a lot healthier and had a lot more energy to her. Thanks to the bone marrow extraction we were able to find out on the 26th that Aurora had aml Leukemia taking her success rate from a 98% chance to 65% survival rate but we didn’t let that discourage us and have held on the hope, the subtype of her aml is still undiagnosed it is so rare and she is in the top 2% to ever be diagnosed with it it doesn’t even have a name yet. On August 1st after several days of nausea and severe diarrhea they told us Auroras had contracted a viral infection in her gut called adeno virus, to us it would just be a regular stomach bug but due to Aurora’s compromised immune system from the chemo it turned into a viral infection. They have stopped feeds completely and have started her on tpn through her iv which consists of all the nutrients she needs to stay alive so they can decide the best course of action to fight the virus because the medication they use can be very harmful to the kidneys. We still have a long way to go and a course or two more of the chemotherapy before they move on with a bone marrow transplant. We are starting this to help with any needs due to me being on leave from work to be here with my family and to help with my babygirl every step of the way. This fund will be used for necessities such as gas, bills, hygiene products, clothing, sterilization products for when we eventually go home, and everything else we may need over the course of the next year, etc. Anything would truly bless us and help us in our darkest hours no amount is to little even if it is just a prayer over our family and our babygirl, thank you all and God bless.
Organizer
jake farris
Organizer
Memphis, TN