Wow! So much has happened since I last blogged but I want to get this story out to you.
For those of you who follow me you already know I have a three daughters (yes...we added another...more on that later) with Type 1 diabetes and our son has hemophilia, a bleeding disorder. So the fact that we were going to a trampoline park hosts a whole set of different issues with both chronic conditions. For the Type 1 diabetics we have to worry about low blood sugars from increased activity. For our hemophiliac we have to worry about possible injury and bleeds. But...chronic illnesses be damned...we had a birthday to celebrate and we can't live in a bubble!
We buy tickets for all the kids to jump for an hour and my hubby and I decided why not?! And we jumped for 30 minutes; we had a blast and also realized that we are old and can get hurt too but see my bubble comment above!
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| How Jackson passes the time waiting for to be called back to his room at the HTC |
The kids were in the last few minutes of their hour of jumping when our son came out and let us know he had a back bleed (he is lucky he is able to tell when he has a bleed before any sign appears). Darn it! We headed out; since we were done anyway and went home to infuse his blood clotting factor medicine. We iced him up and let him sleep in the King's Throne aka the recliner for the evening. The next morning he said it still hurt so we infused again; as it was his regular infusion day. Monday we called our local Hematology Treatment Center (HTC) and let them know that he was still in pain which was weird as he usually bounces back quite quickly upon administering his infusions. They decided he needed to be seen by the hematologist.
We head into the HTC and he is given an exam and gave us an adjusted infusion schedule. They decided he needed daily infusions and they would re-evaluate on Wednesday if he wasn't feeling any better. Wednesday comes and he isn't feeling any better. We head in and he is given another exam and a MRI. The Doctors are concerned he has a bleed along his spinal cord. This was his first MRI and he did a great job! He was able to watch a movie while the scan was being done so it wasn't too bad.
The results were interesting. There was NO bleed. The diagnosis?
A herniated L4 disc...which is extremely rare in children. Not only that but the way in which it was herniated didn't allow for surgery or physical therapy; just rest. The best guess from the Doctors was the injury occurred when our son went for a trampoline slam dunk and twisted his back in conjunction with the bounce of the trampoline and how his body elongated and then compressed. He was told to not even think about the trampoline park for at least a month!
We are now about a month out from the herniated disc and he is fully recovered! He has rested as best as a 9 year old can. Would we change anything? No. This didn't happen because of hemophilia...it was a fluke thing...it could've happened to any of our kids...chronic illness or not. We choose to live our lives and have fun. We can deal with high and low blood sugars, bleeds and now herniated discs.
