About two weeks ago Alyssa started noticing small bruises on her legs. At first she didn't think much of it, she thought she just bumped into something, and she does bruise easily. She had just made a new skirt in her sewing class and wore it to church the following Sunday. Annalee called her later that day to see if anyone commented on her new skirt. Her response was no, but they commented on the bruises on her legs. When Annalee asked what she meant, she said she had big bruises all over her legs. She was going to the doctor the following day for a sinus infection and mentioned the bruising then. The doctor didn't seem to overly concerned and said it probably wasn't anything to worry about.
On Friday Annalee called her again to see how the bruises were and if they had cleared up. She said that they had gotten worse and that she now had them on other parts of her body. She was very strongly admonished to call the doctor and get in to see him, this was not normal! Her appointment was the next day (Saturday). The doctor ordered some blood work and she went to the lab to have blood drawn. She was told they would call her in a day or two with the results. Her brother Bryan was on his way down from BYU-Idaho and Alyssa went to pick him up at the drop off place and take him to Grandma Ward's where he would be staying until Annalee and I arrived in town on Wednesday. About an hour after leaving the lab, she gets a call saying she needs to go to the emergency room for more blood work, the results came back abnormal. She called us and told us the news, Annalee could tell she was near tears and asked if she wanted Grandma and Grandpa Beecher to pick her up and take her. Annalee's parents left immediately from Brigham City, picked her up at my mom's in Sandy and then down to the emergency room in Orem where they waited with her through the rest of the time.
Meanwhile, Annalee and I are back home in Omaha waiting on pins and needles; hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. The result was even worse than what we expected. We were already planning on driving out to Utah on Tuesday for Thanksgiving, so we started preparations for leaving earlier if needed. The phone call came about 9:00 p.m. where we found out that Alyssa had a form of leukemia. We hurried and finished packing, made a few phone calls to friends to tell them the news and to ask them to watch over the house. We got a few hours of sleep and left about 4:30 the following morning for the 15 hour drive to Utah.
Once the test results came back indicating leukemia, preparations were made to transfer Alyssa via ambulance to LDS hospital in Salt Lake City. This was the first time she had been in an ambulance, was quite taken with all the paraphernalia in there, and thought it was kind of cool. Her Grandma rode in the ambulance with her, while her Grandpa followed in the car. They both stayed with Alyssa until we were finally able to get here Monday afternoon.
What we thought was going to be a 15 hour drive, ended up taking a day and a half. We ran into storms throughout Wyoming that slowed us down, then got stopped by a road closure when we were about 2 hours from our destination. We sat on the interstate for three hours trying to get off the exit, it was blocked by semi after semi after semi. We finally turned around headed the wrong way down the interstate for about half a mile until we found a place where we could cross over to the correct side. We traveled back the way we had come about 5 to 10 miles, looking for anyplace that had rooms available where we could spend the night. We found a dive of a motel in Lyman, Wyoming where we spent the night, and continued the rest of our drive the following morning. It was still slow going because of winds, snow packed roads and blowing snow, but we finally made it the hospital about 10:30 non the worse for wear.
Annalee and I are so thankful for the family who was here, that was able to spend the time necessary with Alyssa while we were enroute. I don't even want to think about what she would have had to go through had she had to do this all by herself.
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