Update 3/9/09

I will try to update this to the best of my 'understood' medical ability. This is always the hard part of being here without Nate, and having to use my unschooled medical knowledge. Though I will say that I have had a pretty amazing crash course in medicine over the last 19 months...so much so that the doctors don't even try to dumb down their explanations for Beckham's medical conditions.

Today was a day filled with lots of information. The best part is that we now have a game plan, but still no official diagnosis to what is going on inside Beckham's little body. We did at least get to meet with the hemotology/oncology doctor here, and he was able to give us his expert reason for Beck's platelet problem. His theory is that Beck does not have Heparin-induced Thrombocytopenia, but Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia or ITP. Idiopathic basically means that the reason for Thrombocytopenia is unexplained...but in this case they think that the unexplained reason is that Beckham's body has actually built up anti-bodies against his own platelets and the antibodies are attacking and eating his platelets. Crazy stuff right? The doctors next theory is that Beckham's ITP is not caused by cancer! Whew! This has always been a fear in the back of my mind because all of his symptoms (low hemoglobin, low platelets, and low WBC) are symptoms of cancer. The only way to truly test that Beckham has ITP is by obtaining a bone marrow sample. The doctors do not want to do this right now (whew again) because of the risk it will be to him.

Today...well tonight, they tested the ITP theory in another way by giving his body a platelet transfusion and seeing what his body did with it. The thought was that his platelet count would increase some, but go back down within 8 hours. 1 hour after the transfusion was done, his levels were checked and guess where they were? If you were thinking higher you are super wrong. They actually had gone down to 2. This indeed proved that his body QUICKLY ate up the platelets and that he probably has ITP. They are now going to start a treatment with an immunoglobulin called WinRho, which is used to attack the antibodies that are attacking the platelets in Rh positive individuals. Crazy again right? Man, it's like the battle for middle earth is being fought inside our little Beckham's body. They will check Beckham's levels 8 hours after the WinRho to see if it had any affect on his platelets.

Again, Beck remains completely unaffected by this illness except in his horribly bruised appearance and his inability to stop bleeding. The hematologist/oncologist actually saw first hand how bad his bleeding was when he was here today because Beckham hit lip on a bottle (not very hard) and immediately started gushing blood that we could not get stopped for an hour. The doctors exact words when he saw this were "we are going to stop this bleeding." He sure look like meant it.

Holy cow...I never thought in my whole life that words like Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia or immunoglobulin, would become part of my everyday vocabulary. These, along with all the terms I use for his cardiac and neurologic disorders and care, make me quite the medical nerd. This is all thanks to our walking medical mystery, that is in my arms, refusing to fall asleep without being rocked. I guess this is my queue to sign off. Gee I love this medical miracle!

Keep praying for Beck. He sure needs it.
Lots of love.
-Us