BiographyElodie was always a very healthy active girl. Towards the end of 2021 we noticed some tummy symptoms which we put down to dairy intolerance. Elodie went dairy free under the Drs guidance but shortly after began having headaches which were waking her up at night. After a few days I spoke to the doctor and we were sent to our local hospital. They checked Elodie over and said she was fine, probably just suffering from a virus. Back home we went, then Elodie was being sent home from school as she looked poorly and the headaches were getting worse. We spoke to our GP another twice but there was always something to account for the pains.
We then saw the Dr who sent us to the hospital, she didn’t know why the hospital hadn’t investigated any further and suggested an eye test to rule out strain etc. We luckily got an appointment the next day, within about 5 mins of being at the optician he sent us out saying we were being referred to the eye hospital. The eye hospital showed that Elodie had significant swelling behind her eyes and that we were being sent to hospital to rule out a ‘space occupying lesion’. Scans came back clear, no tumours present and they thought she possibly had benign intracranial hypertension but needed a lumbar puncture to rule this out. We went back to the hospital for a lumbar puncture which showed Elodie had a very high number of white cells in her spinal fluid, this led Drs to believe she may have had meningitis but that came back clear. They then liaised with Alder Heys infectious disease department to see what they thought. A decision was made to repeat the lumbar puncture in another 7 days which showed that the white cells and pressure had pretty much doubled within a week. After this we were shipped off to Alder Hey via ambulance to their neurology department. They repeated lots of tests, and inserted a drain into Elodie’s back to drain off all the excess fluid and reduce the pressure around her brain.
Within 2 days of being at Alder Hey we were told she had leukaemia, much to everyone’s surprise. Elodie was a really rare case and no one had seen this presentation of. Elodie started treatment really quickly and was home fully within 2 weeks. Elodie lost lots of weight during her initial treatment and needed an NG tube. Elodie has also had some bad reactions to the medication used to treat her but has done all this being a little trooper. Elodie returned to school as early as possible to try and maintain some sort of normality for her. Her bravery and resilience has been incredible and we are all in awe of her. Elodie is just at the end of her treatment now and in style has decided to break her wrist now too.
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