You may remember this little guy from the post about Claire’s birthday party. He was only about 3 months old here, and is now about 6 months old. He has been sick for several weeks with a fever ranging from 101.4-102.4 that wouldn’t go away and had been really fussy. He had a rash on his abdomen and had loss of appetite. His parents had carried him to the pediatrician several times to no avail. Finally, last Friday, they drew blood and diagnosed him with mono, double ear infection, and congestion and sent him home with meds. The meds didn’t seem to help over the weekend and Sunday Jax began to swell. His parents brought him to the local ER and he was admitted for more testing.
Monday, a spinal tap was done to do more testing. He was put on IV fluids and antibiotics and his fever was still not going down. When I went up to visit him Monday afternoon, his fever was still 100.4 and the nurse gave him more Tylenol. He looked so pitiful and miserable. Still, they had no answers. I racked my brain with his mother looking up symptoms online, trying to think of common sense answers, etc, but nothing made sense. Tuesday, since Jax’s fever still had not come down, they decided to transfer him to another hospital in the next town over. It is a university hospital and has a children’s hospital in it. They ordered ultrasounds, more spinal taps, x-rays, and CT scans that evening.
Tuesday morning, Amber and I texted back and forth a bit but not as much as usual. There were no updates on Facebook from her mother in law which seemed a bit strange. Amber said they really weren’t telling them or giving them any indication of what they were thinking. But as the morning went on, I felt like it was something bad since there were no updates. By lunch I was getting really nervous. Finally, around 2 pm I couldn’t stand it anymore and I texted Amber again to find out any updates. What she texted me back shocked the life out of me – “He has leukemia.”
WHAT!?!?! A 6 month old healthy baby boy goes from sick with mono and double ear infection to LEUKEMIA??!?! My heart broke for them. This family has already been through so much. Their 1st son (who will be 3 next month) was born at Duke with gastroschesis and stayed in the NICU for almost 4 weeks. Now, this with their newest son? As Amber had texted me when all of this started, Jax was supposed to be “her healthy baby”. As parents of children with major health problems, once you have one child with all of those issues, you kind of feel like you’ve had your share. The next child should be a breeze. I know they must feel like they are fighting a never ending battle. That life is just not fair.
He has been diagnosed with monoblastic leukemia - an acute leukemia. Jaxson will have surgery today to get his port and will start chemo shortly after that. According to an email update from his soon-to-be aunt, he will have chemo twice a day for the first 10 days, then once a day for 5 more days, then once a day again for 5 more days. Then go from there. They haven’t been told what stage the cancer is in or what the prognosis is the doctor pretty much told them to just take it day by day. She said in her email they will do another lumbar puncture today (his 4th). And that hopefully he won’t have bad side effects from the chemo – maybe just hair loss which would be awesome.
So we are begging for your prayers for little Jaxson and his family. I will try to keep the blog updated when I know things. I can only imagine how crazy their lives are right now. The only thing I can compare it to is the day we went for the fetal echo with Claire thinking nothing was wrong and that we were just going to get an extra glimpse of her through ultrasound. And then being told an hour later that she had a complex heart defect and would need open heart surgery shortly after being born. I know that feeling all too well and imagine that’s just about how they feel. Your world can change in seconds.
Please pray for Jaxson and the entire McLawhorn family. We know that many prayer warriors read Claire’s blog and we also know the power of prayer.
Thanks in advance!
Love,
The Scott Family
