Is your child unusually fatigued? Do they bruise easier than normal? Are they more irritable than normal? Not to set off major alarms for every mother that has a child that played hard one weekend and is now over-tired and irritable and has some bruises from the rough and tumble play -- but if this is becoming a pattern in your child -- these are symptoms of childhood leukemia. Other signs are fever, bone pain, bleeding easily and weakness. The lymph nodes, spleen and liver may become swollen. Children commonly lose their appetite.
Diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia involves testing of the blood and bone marrow. Immediately after the diagnosis is confirmed, children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia must receive intensive treatment with anticancer drugs. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most curable form of leukemia, and during remission, most children return to a state of good health with 75-80 percent showing no evidence of leukemia five years after diagnosis.
Awareness of the symptoms and signs of this and all cancers is the key to catching something early and having a better outlook for recovery. Let them play, tumble, tag, slide, and even get dirty. Just notice the changes from their every day routines.
1. I wish is was this simple. What is listed above are the classic symptoms. My daughter, now 22 months into treatment for ALL never had a single of the symptoms listed above. On June 17th of 2004, she was having her bi-annual eye exam and the doctor could see swollen optic nerves. That sent us on a seach for the reason. Blood tests,(they were within normal ranges) special pictures of the Retina, MRI, CAT scan, Bone Scans and another MRI. It took two months to get to the point that they were going to do a biopsy of as small bump on her skull. On August 12th she had another MRI and a blood test. They figured out she had ALL on Friday the 13th of August. After admission and when chemo had started they would come in a look at her and look at her chart and finally she started to say: "I am only sick on paper."
No one did anything wrong, no one missed anything, she would have come down with all the symptoms listed above, eventually. We were lucky and found it before they arrived. The hardest part has been that she was not sick so in the future, if she ever relapses, we won't have a frame of reference. Each bruise, each sneeze, each headache will send me into a panic.
Posted at 12:15AM on Jun 2nd 2006 by Sally A. Lanham