The Diagnosis

On Monday, September 29, 2008 my husband, Jim, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. I’ve decided to create this blog to keep everyone updated on how he is doing.
Here’s the story of how we arrived at this diagnosis . . .

Last July, Jim began having symptoms of swelling in his ankles and discoloration of his shins along with pain the area and a low grade fever. He saw the doctor and was treated for cellulitis, an infection of the deep tissues in the legs. The cellulitis didn’t respond as quickly as the doctor anticipated, and Jim was told to stay on the antibiotic for a longer period of time. To make a long story short, the symptoms improved but the swelling never totally went away.

Over Labor Day weekend, we hosted a family reunion to celebrate my Dad’s 90th birthday. After that big event, a few of us in the family came down with a bit of a sore throat for a couple days. Jim caught a cold but couldn’t shake it. His coughing has continued to persist. A few days later, he began to have symptoms of cellulitis again along with an intermittent fever and returned to the doctor for another round of antibiotics with a diuretic added this time. There was no improvement after a week or so, and Jim returned to the doctor on Thursday, September 25th. His medications were continued and an anti-inflammatory medication was started, and he was asked to return in a week for a blood test. On Saturday, the 27th, Jim coached PAL football in the morning. Not only were his ankles swollen, but his legs were swollen up to his knees. We ran a few errands that afternoon and then Jim decided to take it easy, put his feet up to hopefully relieve the swelling and watch a little football for the rest of the day. Sunday morning, he said he didn’t feel up to going to church. When I returned after dinner, I found him lying on the couch, coughing a lot and so violently he was coughing up blood. He was also running a fever and his legs had developed bruising that wasn’t there the day before. I called his doctor to see if we should take him into the Emergency Room. The doctor suspected a possible phlebitis and changed his medication and asked me to bring him in first thing Monday morning.

When we arrived on Monday, the doctor examined Jim and decided to admit him to the hospital to run some tests, concerned about possible blot clots and pneumonia. As we got settled into his room, Jim was given oxygen to help with his shortness of breath and the technician came up to draw some blood. He was then taken down for a chest x-ray. We were told his x-ray showed that he did indeed have pneumonia. The doctor also ordered a CAT scan of Jim’s legs and chest to check for blood clots.

We called Jim’s mom and told her Jim had been admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. She wondered if she and Dad should come down to help, but we told her we thought we could manage for the short time we thought Jim would be in the hospital. The time came when I needed to leave Jim to be home when Kyle came home from school. On the way to the parking lot, Jim phoned me on my cell and told me he was being moved to the ICU. A bit confused, I asked why and he said he wasn’t able to talk because they were moving him but he would phone me later. I had an uneasy feeling but continued home. I waited a bit, but Jim never called. I was so uneasy at that point that I called him. That’s when he told me that the news wasn’t good. The doctor came in shortly after I left and told him that his blood tests confirmed that he had acute myeloid leukemia. My knees buckled as he told me over the phone and emotionally, I fell apart.

Later, as Jim and I talked, he was very stoic and said that we could get through this. He reminded me that just like when we received the news that Kyle had Down syndrome and Steven had cystic fibrosis, we need to take this one step at a time. That has become my mantra.

He asked me not to share this news with our sons, but to wait instead for the results of the bone marrow biopsy which was scheduled for Tuesday morning. We thought we would know more specifics about this type of leukemia and have a better idea of the prognosis. Steven came home from band, while Brad went to work, and I returned to the hospital to be with Jim. We were emotionally spent and I was functioning in a daze, still not believing this was our reality.