The Macik Family

Owen presented swollen lymph nodes in his neck on May 3rd. Assuming it was related to a sore throat, we took him to the clinic where they completed a series of labs and tests. All results were negative and normal (strep, mono, etc). Children’s Hospital in St. Paul ordered more labs and bloodwork. Owen also had a CT scan of his neck and a chest x-ray. 

Owen’s additional blood work revealed some “blast cells” and an x-ray revealed other enlarged lymph nodes near his sternum causing greater concern; we were urged to get him admitted to the oncology department at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis.

Friday, May 12th, brought more bloodwork and monitoring the lab results to watch his counts. The main concerns were the increased number of white blood cells, reduced platelets, increased hemoglobin, and the increased number of blast cells. Late in the afternoon, the results of a big test came back and confirmed the diagnosis of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL).

Owen's first month of treatment went ok, but the results were not favorable.  A biopsy after induction treatment still revealed 28% of leukemia cells in Owen's bone marrow. The oncology team was hoping this would be less than 5%. This indicates the leukemia is aggressive and resistant to first round of treatment. Owen also got a blood clot on his left arm that put him back in the hospital during the last week of induction.

Owen will be starting the next round of treatment on June 15th.