A sick 9 year old neighbor

I have a sick 9 year old neighbor and I hope if it's as serious as it sounds we've caught it in time. Her dad worked for me about a year building my house and the whole family and I spend a lot of time together. She has always been extremely thin but with lots of energy and good in school. A little over a month ago she started getting depressed, not playing much and having crying spells. Mom was worried and asked me about doctors and I thought of Dr Rosa who has an office in town but also works at the free clinic where we live.

Dr Rosa sent us for blood tests at the local lab and was unhappy with the results so we went to the Cihuatlan lab a few days later. The diagnosis is that she has an imbalance of white blood cells which can be caused by a number of things including leukemia. Dr Rosa said she needed to have a blood marrow test at a hospital in Guadalajara. That would have been a very time consuming and expensive trip so we decided to get a second opinion.

Today we went to Doctor Crespo in Barra de Navidad because he was the only one I could think of and the family only uses Centro de Salud or Seguro Popular. Mom and sister in law immediately said he was expensive but I was driving so we went. Very nice doctor and he spent about a half hour talking, examining and going over her blood tests. His opinion was the same but referred us to the State Cancer Clinic in Colima which will be a much quicker and less expensive trip. He even told us how to get in without an appointment ... and charged us nothing. We'll drive up later in the week.

Yari on the beach

Yari, mom and baby