Alexander’s story began on July 9th, 2009 the day after he turned three years old.  

For several weeks Alejandro had been feeling tired and very lethargic, I thought it was the heat or that he was tired from the year at nursery school.  That morning he woke up with red dots all over his body (petechiae) I didn’t think it was important, but I told my mother who came to pick him up right after lunch so he could take a nap at home.

 

When I returned to work, my mother called and said that Alexander was not feeling well and that he had a very swollen stomach. I called to get an appointment with his paediatrician. When we took him to the doctor he sent him the Emergency to get a blood test, he saw something wasn’t right.

 

We arrived at Emergency at around 20:00 and didn’t leave again until early August ....

 

They did a blood test and the results showed abnormalities  ... the doctor on call told us that our son had something serious in the blood, but she could not confirm anything until the next day when the specialist saw him  ....

 

My husband (Carlos) and I felt like two lost souls. It didn’t take us long to come to the conclusion that it might be Leukaemia. Carlos is very persistent and did not leave until the doctor finally confirmed that they did suspect it was Leukaemia.

 

The next day, after a night of anguish , not knowing how to comfort one another and above all hoping that this was all just a bad dream ... Alexander had a bone marrow aspirate , which confirmed that he indeed had intermediate risk ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia).

 

That’s when our Odyssey began that lasted two years ....

 

Our doctor; Dr. Luis Madero , explained what the treatment would involve and that it would not be easy, first they would administer very continuous chemotherapy. This would be the hardest part for Alexander, he suffered from high fevers , fungi , etc ... and was in the ICU for 10 days straight ... until we finally finished our first month of treatment.

 

After the initial phase, we were in and out of hospital a week in and out, as long as there were no complications ( drop in the platelet levels , fever , petechiae ....)

 

We tried to live the best we could in this situation , making life as pleasant as possible for Alexander :

Television, video games, stories, puzzles, etc ...

 

During the first year he had intravenous treatment, then the second year  he just had oral medication and fortunately all the bone marrow tests indicated that he was in complete remission.

 

For us it was very hard, but we did come out much stronger and more fortified be this experience of overcoming the problems that life brings.

 

We found the hardest part was watching our son suffering through the different treatments and the uncertainty of not knowing what would happen.

The most positive aspect was that we discovered that there are people in your life that will help you get through all this (although you also get many disappointments).

 

Above all I think that this makes you a better person, making you more aware of what we should worry about that is truly important and forgetting about what is not.

 

Four years have passed now, our son is in complete remission, with check-ups every three months and "LIVING" every day to the maximum.

 

The most important thing is to be optimistic and be confident that everything will go well and that your son is going to win the battle.