When her two-year-old daughter Briar came home with a few bruises, Roxanne didn’t think much of it.
“She was in school part time, so I just thought she was playing a little rough,” Roxanne says.
But even on the days Briar was at home, the bruises kept appearing.
“She had been with us all day, and I knew she hadn’t hurt herself, so it just didn’t add up,” Roxanne remembers. “Then one morning, she woke up covered in these finger-sized bruises. She looked like a cheetah.”
Roxanne knew in her gut that something wasn’t right. When Briar came home from school with a bruise on the top of her mouth, the family decided to take her to the hospital.
It was Friday night. The wait in the Emergency Department was going to be long, and Roxanne had her seven-week-old baby with her.
“When Briar was assessed by the triage nurse, we asked her for advice,” she says. “We thought that maybe we should just go home, but she insisted that we should wait to be seen by a doctor. Knowing what we know now, I am so glad that she told us to stay.”
Roxanne decided to trust the nurse, and the family went back to the waiting room.
“After a while, Briar started bleeding at the mouth,” Roxanne remembers. “The triage nurse came over to check her out, and shortly after her assessment, we were prioritized and quickly brought to a room.”
The moments that followed would change their family’s lives.
“The emergency physician ordered a blood test,” Roxanne recalls. “Trying to get blood from this little two-year-old was really difficult.”
Roxanne and her husband Jordan began to worry when a second blood test was ordered.
“The emergency physician was so good. After the repeat blood test, he came in, sat us down, and explained to us that Briar had low platelets. We will remember that doctor and that moment forever. Everything changed.”
Briar was diagnosed with Immune Thrombocytopenia.
“Her body essentially attacks itself,” Roxanne explains. “It specifically attacks the platelets, which means that her blood doesn’t clot properly. So, her bruises weren’t caused by bumping into anything; it was just spontaneous bruising.”
It also meant that any minor injury posed a great risk to Briar.
“I vividly remember him explaining all of this to us, and we just couldn’t have hoped for a more caring and kinder person to break that terrifying news to us,” she adds. “As we sat there listening, it started to dawn on me, ‘Oh, we are not about to leave this hospital.’”
Briar had to be admitted, and as soon as the family got to the Children’s Health Unit, the family were amazed by the warm and welcoming the space.
“The unit is beautiful. The rooms are huge, new, and clean. The staff brought in a play mat right away and kept asking if we needed anything,” Roxanne says.
While Jordan and their newborn, Ivy, went home for the night, Roxanne stayed with Briar.
“At this point, any bump could have caused Briar severe internal bleeding, so the main goal was to get her platelets up. Ideal numbers for platelets are between 150 and 400,” Roxanne explains. “Briar had four.”
Briar needed an intravenous immunoglobulin treatment (IVIG) to increase her numbers.
“The Children’s Health Unit has these fantastic IV poles, so she got to pick one and chose the unicorn,” Roxanne says with a smile. “The unicorn ended up being our best friend for those six days we spent at the hospital.
“Having a sick kid is the scariest thing in the world, but thanks to the incredibly kind and competent team at Niagara Health, we felt safe and reassured.”
To ensure Briar’s body was reacting well to her treatment, her vitals were initially checked every 15 minutes.
“She hated it,” Roxanne remembers. “She would ask me, ‘Are they going to do the squeezy thing again?’ Because she was so tiny, they measured her blood pressure on her leg with this tiny cuff. It was a lot for her. By the end of it, a nurse would walk into the room, and she’d just hold out her little finger, ready for the pulse reading. It broke my heart.”
Roxanne tried to stay positive. “After 24 hours, the treatment usually has great success, so they ran another test. Her platelets had risen to five.”
After a couple of days of waiting, many more pricks and pokes for Briar, and hoping the effects of the treatment were merely delayed, it became clear that Briar would need another IVIG treatment.
“We were disappointed, but at that point, being in the hospital had become our weird new reality,” Roxanne explains.
The team on the Children’s Health Unit made it easy for the family to adjust to their “new normal.” For the most part, Briar has a positive memory of her hospital stay.
“We decorated her room with construction paper. One day, they came for a visit with the (therapy) dogs.
We would go to the gift shop to pick out a balloon. She genuinely thought that it was a little vacation.”
Even on her most difficult days, the little patient remained her charming self.
“During one of her assessments, Briar said, ‘Excuse me, Doctor, excuse me? Do you like my shoes?’” Roxanne says with a laugh.
After her second treatment, Briar’s platelets rose to 74, which meant she could finally go home.
“I was almost sad going home,” Roxanne says. “I had all of these people constantly reassuring me that everything was OK, answering my questions. They made us feel safe.”
Today, Briar, now three, is doing well. She’s excited about hot chocolate, twinkling lights and all the family time she will get during the holidays.
Roxanne is grateful her family went through their experience together and close to home.
“It did feel normal after a couple of days, but it was also a very emotional time. I knew I had to be strong for Briar, and the staff really helped me do that,” she says.
“There were moments when I struggled to keep it together. She would be terrified of needing another needle, and it was so hard to watch. But then a nurse would immediately distract her with a binder full of Band-Aids she could choose from. It took Briar’s mind off the pain, and it gave me a minute to breathe. I can’t imagine how their team does this job – how they stay strong for the kids and the parents, and do it all with a smile on their face.”
“Having the hospital and the resources close to home wasn’t just good for Briar; it impacted our whole family. That is true not just for pediatrics. Behind each patient is a family.”
We thank Roxanne for sharing her story with you. Her family’s experience is an important reminder of why we do what we do at the Foundation.
If you would like to make a gift in support of our local hospitals this holiday season, a gift of $50 or more gives you the chance to celebrate, support or honour someone special by adding their name to a light bulb.
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