From Shauna:

In mid-March, August wasn't feeling well and was not acting like his normal self, so we took him in for a check-up. We were immediately sent for blood work. A few hours later, we were in the ER and admitted to the PICU for a night of emergency blood transfusions. Within the next three days, he was diagnosed with Leukemia. The silver lining to his diagnosis was that it is one of the most common and most treatable of the types seen in children. August started treatment that same day.

Typically, once treatment is started, most families can keep their child home in some level of isolation and visit the clinic once a week for chemo and labs. However, August developed unusual fevers due to a rare infection that had caused abscesses throughout his legs, and we ended up spending the majority of our first two months of treatment living in the hospital. At first, the infection made it so August was unable to walk or get out of bed. We are happy to say that just this last week, after weeks of antibiotics, physical therapy, and chemo, we have been able to stay home for a whole week without having to go back to the hospital! August is starting to act like a little boy again. He is walking, playing, and talking nonstop just like he used to.

He has also been given a new type of immunoglobulin therapy that was just recently added to the standard care for his type of leukemia. He wears a backpack with a bag of medication and a small pump inside that does a continuous infusion over 28 days. It feels really high tech, and he is already a pro at wearing his backpack wherever he goes. Best of all, he got to pick out the backpack with the oncology nurses, so it is his favorite color, red, and covered with trucks.

We still have a long road ahead of us with plenty more blocks of treatment, as well as a few years of maintenance treatment to make sure he can stay in remission once we get there.

Help August (Shauna Moses son) fight Leukemia

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