I've had a lot of people ask how we came to find out about Ambrosia having cancer, so I thought I'd write an entry about it. On October 6th, 2012, our family went to the Louisville Zoo for their Trick or Treating. My husband was the first to point out that he heard Ambrosia making a grunting noise and she seemed to be doing it with every breath she took. That was our first clue that something was going on. We made it through the zoo and after getting home I kept a close eye on her. She wasn't running a fever and didn't seem to have any other symptoms besides the grunting.
The following Tuesday, October 9th, came and I decided she needed to be taken to the doctor as she was still grunting even though like I said there were no other symptoms. I decided to take video of her making the noise just in case for some reason she stopped doing it before we got to the doctor's office. I wanted to make sure she was treated for something because I knew something wasn't right.
The following Tuesday, October 9th, came and I decided she needed to be taken to the doctor as she was still grunting even though like I said there were no other symptoms. I decided to take video of her making the noise just in case for some reason she stopped doing it before we got to the doctor's office. I wanted to make sure she was treated for something because I knew something wasn't right.
We got to the doctor's office and she was still grunting. They checked to see how much oxygen she was getting and it was lower than it should be. The doctor decided to test her for RSV and while they waited for the results of that he wanted to treat her with medicine through a nebulizer. She was treated right there in the office with the nebulizer and afterwards they checked her oxygen levels again to see if the treatment helped. It did in fact help and her oxygen was a higher level than when we came in. The doctor came back and said the test for RSV came back negative. He said he thought she had bronchiolitis and even though her test came back negative for RSV there are other viruses that can cause the bronchiolitis. He gave me prescriptions and a nebulizer in which to administer the medicine and had me come back two days later to check on her again.
Picture I took in the doctor's office her first visit while she was getting a nebulizer treatment
I picked up her medicine and proceeded to give her the treatments every 4 hours for the next couple of days until we went back. We went back to the doctor on October 11th to check her progress. The treatments seemed to be helping her but she wasn't a whole lot better. He had me come back on October 13th to check on her again. On the 13th he decided to put her on a steroid to see if that would help kickstart things to move along. The steroid seemed to help and I thought she was getting better. The doctor had scheduled us an appointment for October 15th to check her again. We went and she did seem like she had improved. Even with the improvement her doctor wanted to see her again on the 18th.
On the 18th that morning she seemed like she had taken a turn and gotten worse again. When I got to the doctors office and they took her oxygen levels, they had to check it several times and we weren't getting good readings at all. Dr. Katz decided that maybe she had pneumonia and we should go to Kosair's to have a chest x-ray done. They wrote up orders for us to do just that but before we left he decided to take some blood from her to check first. He came back awhile later and said her white blood cell count was really high and that he would call ahead to the ER at Kosair's to let them know we were on our way.
I called my husband at home to wake him up as at the time he was working until 2 in the morning so he was still sleeping. I told him what was going on and that I thought he should come with me to the hospital. He agreed and I went and picked him up before going to the hospital. The entire time this was going on from the first visit, I had a hard time thinking it was a virus or even at the end pneumonia because like I said from the beginning she was never running a fever. In the back of my head I always knew we would end up at Kosair's but I never thought we would be told she had cancer.
After we got to the hospital and they put us in an ER room, they started treatments with a nebulizer and got a chest x-ray. The x-ray showed fluid in her lungs and they were going to be admitting us to the PICU. Once we got to the PICU, they decided she needed a CT scan. Before she got her CT scan, they were already talking about surgery to drain the fluid from her lungs. A lot of things are fuzzy from that day, but I assume they wanted to do the CT scan first to just check to see if they could find out what was really going on. It's a good thing they did.
I was scheduled for an exam in my Anatomy and Physiology class that night and ended up leaving with a note from the hospital to take to my professor. Luckily campus was downtown and only a couple of blocks away. I was able to make it there and let her know I didn't think I was fit to take the exam. Clearly, as I broke down in tears and she had a hard time understanding me. While I was gone, Ambrosia went for her CT scan. After I got back it was a waiting game to find out the results of the CT scan. My parents and Wes' mom and boyfriend had been at the hospital with us for hours at this point as well. One of the surgeons came in and talked about the fluid in her lungs and let something slip about a spot on her liver. That was our first clue that something was wrong. I don't think she realized that we hadn't been told anything at that point. Awhile later the doctors in the PICU that had been treating her asked for just Wes and me to come with them. There was also a couple of other people with them. We knew it wasn't good when we saw all the people there. They took us to a room and there they delivered the news that there was a tumor on the liver and from what they could tell it had spread to her lungs. That is what was causing her breathing issues.
We were in shock and of course broke down in tears. The all sat with us while we cried and one of the doctors gave me a hug. They then went and got my parents and Wes' mom and boyfriend, while the chaplain stayed with Braeden in Ambrosia's room. The news was broke to everyone. They then left us to ourselves and told us to take our time coming back in the room. My first entry on here kind of shows a timeline of events from our trip to the ER and then the PICU that day from my Facebook statuses. That is the back story to how we got to where we are today with Ambrosia and her cancer.
On the 18th that morning she seemed like she had taken a turn and gotten worse again. When I got to the doctors office and they took her oxygen levels, they had to check it several times and we weren't getting good readings at all. Dr. Katz decided that maybe she had pneumonia and we should go to Kosair's to have a chest x-ray done. They wrote up orders for us to do just that but before we left he decided to take some blood from her to check first. He came back awhile later and said her white blood cell count was really high and that he would call ahead to the ER at Kosair's to let them know we were on our way.
I called my husband at home to wake him up as at the time he was working until 2 in the morning so he was still sleeping. I told him what was going on and that I thought he should come with me to the hospital. He agreed and I went and picked him up before going to the hospital. The entire time this was going on from the first visit, I had a hard time thinking it was a virus or even at the end pneumonia because like I said from the beginning she was never running a fever. In the back of my head I always knew we would end up at Kosair's but I never thought we would be told she had cancer.
After we got to the hospital and they put us in an ER room, they started treatments with a nebulizer and got a chest x-ray. The x-ray showed fluid in her lungs and they were going to be admitting us to the PICU. Once we got to the PICU, they decided she needed a CT scan. Before she got her CT scan, they were already talking about surgery to drain the fluid from her lungs. A lot of things are fuzzy from that day, but I assume they wanted to do the CT scan first to just check to see if they could find out what was really going on. It's a good thing they did.
I was scheduled for an exam in my Anatomy and Physiology class that night and ended up leaving with a note from the hospital to take to my professor. Luckily campus was downtown and only a couple of blocks away. I was able to make it there and let her know I didn't think I was fit to take the exam. Clearly, as I broke down in tears and she had a hard time understanding me. While I was gone, Ambrosia went for her CT scan. After I got back it was a waiting game to find out the results of the CT scan. My parents and Wes' mom and boyfriend had been at the hospital with us for hours at this point as well. One of the surgeons came in and talked about the fluid in her lungs and let something slip about a spot on her liver. That was our first clue that something was wrong. I don't think she realized that we hadn't been told anything at that point. Awhile later the doctors in the PICU that had been treating her asked for just Wes and me to come with them. There was also a couple of other people with them. We knew it wasn't good when we saw all the people there. They took us to a room and there they delivered the news that there was a tumor on the liver and from what they could tell it had spread to her lungs. That is what was causing her breathing issues.
We were in shock and of course broke down in tears. The all sat with us while we cried and one of the doctors gave me a hug. They then went and got my parents and Wes' mom and boyfriend, while the chaplain stayed with Braeden in Ambrosia's room. The news was broke to everyone. They then left us to ourselves and told us to take our time coming back in the room. My first entry on here kind of shows a timeline of events from our trip to the ER and then the PICU that day from my Facebook statuses. That is the back story to how we got to where we are today with Ambrosia and her cancer.
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