Day 3, Liam's Leukemia journey

Monday night Liam had a headache. Tuesday he woke up very upset about a sore shoulder that I assummed was sore muscles from maybe sleeping on it funny. It turned into a sore neck and then included his ribs. When he told me his ribs hurt I lifted his shirt and found a strange rash. It looked a lot like the red dots I sometimes get that turn into freckles or moles, but there were so many of them all over his chest and stomach. that I called it a rash. It didn't worry me too much, I thought I would just give it a few days and see what happened with it. I racked my brain for anything different he may have eaten that may have caused an allergic reaction. His preschool was having picture day and i took him, sure that it was nothing serious or contagious. He really didn't want to and it took a lot of bribery to get him to smile, but we got about 3 pics out of him then went home. He wasn't very active for most of the week, but I mostly didn't worry about it. Thursday I began to worry when he didn't want to play in his last soccer game. He was really lethargic and fell asleep on my lap while we watched Julia's soccer game. This was around 6:00. He slept in the car on his way home and went straight to bed and slept until 3 a.m. Then was a little bit of a problem but slept a little bit more until morning. He fell asleep while in the car running errands on Friday around 1:30. This shouldn't seem strange considering considering the early morning wakings he had. I scrapped some of the errands and just took him home to put in bed. But I kept checking on him while he was sleeping and I felt worried. Something about that nap didn't seem right. I checked his "rash" again and decided it was just too weird to not get checked out so I called the doctor. We took him in at 4:20. The doctor told me it could be a reaction to a virus or that it could mean that his platelets were low. Immediately my mind thought, "Leukemia," but I pushed that out of my head and told myself it was a virus. We were sent straight to American Fork hospital for a blood draw. Liam was terrified and very upset about the poke. Meanwhile, Mark was supposed to be camping with his dad and brothers near Richfield but had broken down around Scipio. Mark and Bruce were waiting there until someone, probably Mark's mom could come and get them. I texted Mark where we were, but I didn't want to scare him so I told him I was sure it was nothing and I began to believe that it really was nothing to worry about. Liam was so upset by it and I knew it would just be me and the kids for the night, so I told them we could eat wherever we wanted. Liam picked Carl's Jr. They love to play there. We went to Carl's Jr, ordered our food and started to play when Mark called and asked me to come pick him and Bruce up and that they had decided not to try to make it camping, but that Christine would be later picking them up so I'd be faster. I let the kids play for about 10 minutes, then rounded them up into the car and we tried to head south. The closest freeway entrance was closed going south, so we ended up going north, then turning around at the next exit. Then we got stuck behind traffic from an accident. It took me half an hour to make it from Pleasant Grove until Provo so I called Mark to tell him how late we'd be. The nurse called a few minutes later and told me to take Liam up to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake immediately. I told her we were already in the car and asked if we should stop and pack a bag, but she said not to bother with that and bring him right up. She said that his platelet count was critically low. That's when I got scared and knew it was something awful. I called Mark, crying, and turned around at the Springville exit, suddenly thankful for the traffic that had held us up before, otherwise we would have been even further from the hospital. Then the doctor called and told me it was Leukemia. He said they were sure that that was what it was, they didn't know what type, and that they would start the tests as soon as he got to the hospital. I called Mark to tell him and I felt awful that he was stranded so far away from us and told him to start praying. I also called one of my visiting teachers and asked her to let people know that we needed prayers for Liam. I felt that it was important that he needed as many prayers as were possible. I have a testimony that I have been helped in my life by many prayers on my behalf and wanted the same for Liam.
We checked him in at the emergency room and thus began the longest most stressful week of our life. he started his chemo treatments right away.