To determine if Leukemia or Aplastic anemia is causing Clark’s red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets to be so low, a bone marrow biopsy and aspiration must be done.
Bone marrow is the soft tissue found in the hollow part of most bones and it is responsible for making all three of these types of blood cells. A bone marrow biopsy is the removal of soft tissue, called marrow, from inside bone. This is used to test for Aplastic Anemia. A bone marrow aspiration is the removal of a small amount of this tissue in liquid form for examination. They use this to test for Leukemia.
Patrick and I were very worried, since this was Clark’s 1st time under anesthesia. About 15 minutes before the operation, Clark was given a liquid calming medicine, nicknamed “Drunk baby”. This caused him to be “out of it” enough to allow doctors to take him away. Thankfully Clark’s operation only took about 20 minutes. We didn’t experience any complications and no allergies to the light anesthesia. It was given to him as a gas, and light enough that he didn’t need a breathing tube.
The hematologists were fully aware of Clark’s operation and were not concerned about bleeding since the operation is similar to having blood drawn. No factor was needed. We also made sure the surgeon knew about Clark’s hemophilia, so after the operation a compress bandage was put on to help stop the bleeding quickly. He bled through it in about 15 minutes, but after a bandage change there were no more bleeding issues. He hardly even had a bruise.
Clark woke up from the anesthesia very groggy and incredibly upset. He flopped around and cried for a good 30-45 minutes. We’ve talked to several doctors and parents, and apparantly this is normal for children. Playing with ice chips and eating a popsicle helped calm him down.
Confirmation on his condition was given to us in 3 steps. The next day, we were given news that Clark most likely did not have Leukemia (a 95% chance that he didn’t have it). A couple days later, we got a confirmed negative on Leukemia after looking at his marrow. Now to wait for the results for the Aplastic Anemia. These results should be here in 5 days to 2 weeks.
On Friday (5 days later) our hematologist called us to say that Clark did not have Aplastic Anemia. This was a surprise as we were only ever told that these were Clark’s only options.
Unfortunately… this type of science isn’t black and white, and contains a lot of gray area. In this case, Aplastic anemia had not yet “declared itself”. This came when we had our second bone marrow biopsy.