Audrey's story, written by her mom, Shelly K.
September 13, 2011 was a day that forever changed our lives!
Audrey was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
At 12 years old, she had just started 7th grade.
She had what I thought was just a cold that would pass. She was having a hard time breathing when she lay down, headaches, and then when she woke up in the mornings her lips were bluish. I still thought just a cold. She came home one day (Wednesday September 7, 2011) and told me that her collar bone was swollen (there was a golf ball size mass on her shoulder) and her throat was sore, I took her to urgent care and she was positive for strep throat, antibiotics should fix this.
But 5 days later (Monday) she was feeling everything but better, so we went into the pediatrician and he looked at her and went to his office came back in and told us he wanted a CT with contrast, radiology wanted to wait for preauthorization, which after I was told the cost, I agreed. Audrey called me at work that night in pain and with fever; of course I figured a Tylenol would fix it, short of taking off work to go to ER that’s what I told her to do.
I called the Doctors office the next morning for RX for pain and the nurse called me back and said He did not feel comfortable with that until he knew what was going on. Tuesday we went in for the CT, and an appointment to go talk to him after morning patients. I received a phone call to come back for Blood test and chest X-ray, then to hear the news.
When he walked in to the exam room I knew in my heart it wasn’t good. He sat down and said “Audrey has Lymphoma” the tears started, I knew Cancer was bad, (having went to school for Medical Assisting I knew “oma” was Cancer.) He told me he had been on the phone with Primary Children’s Medical Center and the Oncologist wanted her out there as soon as possible. We were introduced to ICS that night! What a whirl wind of a day.
Wednesday she had a biopsy and bone marrow aspirate and PICC line placement (line to give her the chemo (poison) that would kill all the cancer cells also any antibiotics and blood), Saturday September 17, 2011, she started her first of four rounds of chemo.
She done pretty good through most of the chemo, chemo was in patient, she had 3 inpatient stays for fever. In all she had 4 rounds of chemo, 14 days of radiation therapy, several transfusions.
No child should have to go through this.
She finished her therapy on January 18, 2012. No more cancer cells were evident, and she will follow up with Oncology every 3 months. I thank God for her every day and for the doctors that helped her through this trial of her life.
I love you Audrey, you are my Hero!
Love, Mom
