Friday 6 January 2012

How it all began....

January 2012- Karagh is now 17 weeks old.

When she was 3 weeks old we brought her to the doctor because she was constipated and had a big lump on the right hand side of her belly. Our GP sent us to the Paeds department in Portlaoise hospital to have her checked. They kept us over-night to monitor her and came to us the next morning. They said she seemed badly constipated and the lump on her side was a popped muscle in her stomach from the pressure she was putting on herself trying to poo. They decided to do a "wash out" on her basically cleaning out her bowel. That evening we were transferred to Our Ladys hospital in Crumlin for Karagh to be seen by a specialist. Again they done a wash out on her and she seemed in good form, we were kept in for the weekend to see how she was. We came home on the Sunday and thought that would be the end of it. We settled back home and got ourselves into a great routine....

November 2011- It was the weekend of the 19th when I noticed Karagh didn't seem herself. She was gone off her feeds, seemed constipated again and  hysterically crying for no obvious reason. (Now im not just saying this because she's my child but she was never a cranky baby, she really was so good and rarely cried.) I put it down to her starting to teeth. That Monday we were at home, myself, Karagh & her daddy Keith. I was winding her after her feed when i noticed a lump on the left hand side of her back. On the Tuesday we brought her to the GP again to see what it could be. Again we were sent to Paeds in Portlaoise. They kept us over night because they wanted to do an ultrasound on Karagh the next morning. The ultrasound results showed what seemed to be a bruise on her back. Karagh was under the care of Dr. Daly and she decided she wanted to do further tests on Karagh as she wasnt convinced by the results. An x-ray was done, that showed nothing so again we were transferred to Our Ladys in Crumlin. The doctor in Crumlin said there was no way she was constipated and sent us back to Portlaoise. At this stage we were fit to scream, 3 days in the hospital and 2 scans later we were still no closer to getting any answers.  Dr. Daly came straight to see us. She wasn't happy with us not getting answers from Crumlin so she decided to do a CT scan the following day and also a urine test. Friday afternoon my mam came over to us in the hospital. She brought us some dinner over as we hadn't had proper food in days! We had just started to eat when Dr. Daly came in to see us. She had the results of Karagh's CT scan. She explained that the scan had shown a mass on Karagh's spine. I hadn't a clue what she was talking about! Until she said that it could be either a benign or mailgnent tumor. She said we would be transferred to Crumlin on Tuesday for Karagh to be seen by an oncology doctor to find out exactly what the tumor was. Initially hearing the news, we were devastated but the severity of the situation hadn't quite hit us yet. We were told we would be kept in Portlaoise hospital until there was a cot available for Karagh in Crumlin. Sunday afternoon a cot became available and we went straight away, with an envelope in tow containing all Karagh's scans and results. On the way up I had myself convinced everything would be ok. We got to Crumlin and a doctor came to see us straight away. His name was Dr. Michael Capra, a Paediatric Oncology doctor. I gave him the envelope and he left. He returned to us within 5 minutes and confirmed that the tumor was cancerous.

The type of cancer being Neuroblastoma.


Sarah x

1 comment:

  1. Though this video is about a Doctor who become a muslim but there is an athiest prayer which can help you rest is all your walk how you takecare of yourself and how you walk , if this little angel is to stay she is a blessing Cancer is just what human think but CREATOR can give life longer then you and me to this cute little baby .

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J5_VETwfew&feature=relmfu

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