Kaitlin was about 11 months old when I noticed that she was not walking. She met all of her other developmental milestones with no problems but for some reason she would only stand on soft surfaces like the couch or padding on the floor. Kaitlin started crawling at 9 months, so I knew it was time for her to walk. As a person that evaluated children for developmental delays at the time, I knew what to look for. We were at St. Jude for her regular check-up and all of the sudden a team of doctors from H-Clinic
(Hematology) walked in the examination room. They all introduced themselves and then went over Kaitlin's bloodwork from her blood draw earlier that morning. The bloodwork showed that her blood was 80% sickled and the doctors were amazed that she was sitting on the examination bed playing. Now to be honest with you, a big part of that was because she was exclusively breastfed. You would be surprised how breastmilk can solve quite a few problems. Once all of the doctors examined her one by one, they gave us information about hydroxyurea and how it would be beneficial for her. The doctors also told us about the side effects. Then they asked us if we would be interested in her starting hydroxyurea. We immediately told her them yes and they gave her the first dose. The doctors then stated that Kaitlin would have to be seen monthly instead of quarterly because they have to monitor her progress with the new medication. She was already on a penicillin regimen of taking it twice a day. Hydroxyurea is actually a chemotherapy medication but it works great for patients with Sickle Cell. Unfortunately, one of the side effects is possible hair loss but that was one of the risks we were willing to take in order for her to get better. Kaitlin improved tremendously within a year with the help of hydroxyurea along with physical and occupational therapy to eventually start walking as well as stabilize her hemoglobin baseline levels. That's when I knew that Hydroxyurea was nothing short of a miracle drug.
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