Excerpt from my book, Sponges

amypotts — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:00:45 +0000

Hello! my name is amy potts and i am the author of sponges a true account of my sons survival of cancer; specifically acute myolengenous leukemia. my son was treated in a military facility and if the care would have had to be paid for it would have been at least 100, 000. The doctors had given up hope for my sons survival when he was placed on life support and wanted to pull the plug on his life support machine. I had a dream where I saw my son home happy and laughing and told the doctors to not pull the plug on his life support machine. The doctors agreed to give Bryan a few more days on the life support machine and then the miraclous happened. Bryan made a turn around for the better. The doctors had no explanation for his recovery and his survival. I will begin reading now an excerpt from the book, Sponges which is available at all online book retailers including amazon.com. I was encouraged by a pastor in mississippi where bryan was treated to write a book on my experiences.
Please also check out my website which is www.amypotts-author.embarqspace.com..once again www.amypotts-author.embarqspace.com.
Bryan was thirteen and life was okay, really nothing
unusual happening, and one day he comments, “Mom,
my leg hurts. I think I hurt it swinging on this tree when
I fell down.” He tells me the pain isn’t that bad and he
thinks it’s probably nothing. Bryan though again
complains about his leg. A few weeks pass and the pain
seems to go away so we let it go. Bryan then comes down
with flu-like symptoms and I think well this is simple and
take the appropriate actions. He had typical flu-like
symptoms, cold, cough, sore throat, throwing up. Bryan
doesn’t get any better though. Bryan gets worse every day
and although I am doing what I am supposed to do,
nothing helps. How bizarre. I think, How bizarre. Bryan
seems to be very sick to me and finally Bryan is admitted
to a hospital.
I begin to be in a state of shock, horror and unbelief. I
find it hard to talk, taking very long breaths and pausing
quite often, and I know Bryan is very sick and there is a lot
of rushing around, Bryan is put in a large room and given
blood. Bryan only has one quarter of the blood in his body
he is supposed to have and he is in heart failure. Bryan
has to be given many pints of blood. Bryan has leukemia.
During his short stay in this hospital I am in a bit of a
shock and really don’t know what to say or do. I am
definitely upset and extremely worried about Bryan. I am
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very shocked and upset at the whole situation of what is
happening.
I have another child named Chloe who is six at this time
and I am feeling overburdened and do not know what to
say to her and I ride with my son in the ambulance.
I am really scared. Bryan is coughing a lot and I feel so
much guilt. I am so scared that I keep asking Bryan over
and over, “Are you okay?”
He always responds, “Yes, Mom, I’m okay.”
I start thinking about Chloe wondering if she is okay
and how she is handling all of this, but mostly my focus is
on my son and him getting lots of blood… First he has
heart failure, which I really don’t even realize what that
means, and the realization of HEART FAILURE doesn’t
even occur to me that it means that his heart is actually
failing because of the cancer diagnosis that I would learn
about later.
It seems to take forever to arrive. And when we finally
arrive Bryan is unloaded and put in another hospital.
I stay in the room with him but I cannot sleep. I have so
much guilt over the fact that Bryan is sick. I blame myself
somehow; I don’t know why but I feel like this is all my
fault.
Bryan has AML, which is a type of leukemia,
specifically acute myelogenous leukemia. This type of
leukemia attacks the cells fast and strong. Acute
myelogenous leukemia (AML) is a fast-growing cancer of
the blood and bone marrow. In AML the bone marrow
makes many uniform cells called blasts. Blasts normally
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38
develop into white blood cells that fight infection.
However, the blasts are abnormal in AML. They do not
develop and cannot fight infections. The bone marrow
may also make abnormal red blood cells and platelets.
The number of abnormal cells (or leukemia cells) grows
quickly. They crowd out the normal red blood cells, white
blood cells and platelets the body needs. The treatment of
chemotherapy must be started as soon as possible.
I don’t sleep for the first three days of staying in Bryan’s
room because I am so worried and upset and scared. I
wear some green scrubs because I didn’t bring any
clothes with me. I go to the hotel and get a room and look
around and find some pills in a small bag. I look the pills
over and think I find something that can help me sleep. I
take these pills and they knock me out for a few hours and
I finally get a little rest.
Bryan has to have many rounds of treatment. Bryan
must endure treatment to fight this cancer.
Bryan has a 50/50 chance of survival. My mind goes
blank and I do not even care about the odds and I really do
not care about what odds my son has because I know my
son will survive this cancer! My son will survive this
illness.
I go to see Bryan and he is sitting up in bed smiling and
not worried at all. He tells me that he isn’t scared and he
knows everything will be okay. Chloe runs up to me
hugging me and then asks, “What is that you have on?”
She is curious about the green scrubs I am wearing and
I just laugh and she brings me strength simply seeing her
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and feeling her warm embrace. I hug Bryan bye and head
to the room and get settled in and I take a nice long
shower and try to get Chloe to go to sleep.
I feel that this is all a dream and that it really isn’t
happening and it is hard for me to feel the impact of the
magnitude of this situation. Bryan seems to be acting
very brave; I never see him cry or act scared and I start
calling him my hero. I tell him what a great kid he is and
I admire him so very much.
The first week of treatment begins, which is titled the
induction. During the induction phase of treatment
chemotherapy is very intense to bring about remission.
The drugs that were used for Bryan included
Daunorubicin and Ara-C. These drugs are given over a
period of seven days and are given together and the side
effects of these drugs are measurable. These drugs cause
the white cell blood count to go down, anemia, and low
platelet counts. This means that the patient must receive
numerous blood transfusions and blood platelets. There
are many other side effects that happen when these
drugs are used to fight the leukemia. The kidneys may
fail, the heart may sustain damage and many other
things that can happen to the human body when
administered these drugs. I had no other choice than to
let the chemotherapy go forward because the leukemia
was already trying to kill my son and he was already very
sick with heart failure as well.
Bryan did get sick on the first day of treatment and
vomited several times. On the second day Bryan didn’t
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40
feel like walking around. On the third day Bryan was
feeling worse and did not want to get up. Bryan was
getting worse and vomited several times and got very
thirsty but when he would try and drink something he
would just throw it up. I had Chloe in his room one day
when Bryan threw up so violently it almost hit Chloe. On
the fourth day I was talking to Bryan and we were having
a good conversation, about I what I don’t recall, but Bryan
was getting worse.
Over the next few days I watched as Bryan got worse
and worse. At one point Bryan wanted one of his favorite
drinks. Bryan starts crying telling us, “This could be the
last drink I ever have.” He was having problems breathing
and it seemed every day he struggled more just to catch a
breath! Bryan would be medicated to help him deal with
the pain of what he was going through. This would make
him groggy and he didn’t talk much. He still wanted to
watch TV though and his favorite channel was the
channel that showed what was coming on and whenever
I tried to change it he always wanted it back on this
channel. This one small thing brought a smile to my face
during that very hard time and it reassured me that my
son was going to be okay.
Finally on his fourteenth birthday he had given all he
could give and his body could not fight the pneumonia
anymore and he had to be placed on life support so that
a machine could breathe for him. That was a sad day and
one of the worst days in my life. Sadness filled my heart
and grief overwhelmed my soul. I left Bryans room and
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overwhelmed in tears I walked down the stairs from
the hospital. Bryan’s lungs were full of the pneumonia
that had saturated his very being.
That is the end of my reading from my book, Sponges. I hope you are able to get it and learn more about Bryan and his survival of cancer when the doctors had given up hope. Get it now at amazon.com
By the way, Bryan is doing very well now and is considered cured by the cancer foundation. He is in college majoring in accounting and is now 21. my website is once again…www.amypotts-author.embarqspace.com

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Excerpt from my book, Sponges