Hayden Davis-ALL

On October 5th, 2015 our youngest daughter Hayden Davis was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). Hayden is 3 years old and had always been healthy prior to getting this horrible news. Around mid September, Hayden was running a fever and was very lethargic. We took her to the pediatrician who could not see anything wrong but they started an antibiotic just in case it was the start of something they could not see yet. The 10 days of antibiotics came and went and Hayden still had a fever everyday. At this point, she was barely walking, she wanted to sleep all day, and she had no color to her skin. We took her back to the pediatrician who thought she could be really dehydrated and suggested we go right to the hospital. At the hospital they started IV fluids, drew her labs, and ordered a chest X-ray and ultrasound. The doctor came in and said that her red blood count was really low and she would need a blood transfusion. She also said we would have to go to The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). We were waiting for the ambulance to take us to The Children’s Hospital when a doctor who worked for CHOP pulled us aside to talk to my husband and I about what they found. They said they would have to do more testing once at CHOP but when they looked at her blood under the microscope and they found blasts in her blood which usually indicates Leukemia. Our hearts broke listening to these words. We were hoping it was a mistake and that they would tell us it was not cancer. Once at CHOP, they confirmed it was leukemia but they were not sure if it was ALL or AML. After a couple spinal taps and a bone marrow biopsy, they confirmed it was ALL type B and that she had blasts (cells indicating leukemia) in her spinal fluid. They started chemotherapy right away. We have now been in the hospital for 12 days and Hayden is doing great! She had another spinal tap on 10/15 to check for blasts in her spinal fluid again. As of yesterday they could not detect blasts in her spinal fluid or blood. We are still doing weekly chemo and taking it day by day. Hayden is a fighter and is doing a wonderful job kicking cancer.