A mother has removed her eleven year old daughter from a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. The child has leukemia. She also has a heart catheter in place, and could die if she doesn’t go back to the hospital soon. At the time I am writing this blog, police do not know where the child has been taken to.
Leukemia is a serious condition. It is the cancer of the blood forming tissues in the body, including the bone marrow, and the lymphatic system. There are many types of leukemia, including some forms that are more common in children than in adults.
Treatment can be complex. Early symptoms can resemble the flu. In some cases, a person has a blood test done for an unrelated medical reason and the results come back indicating that the person has leukemia.
Norma Bracamontes is the mother of an eleven year old daughter who has leukemia. Her daughter, who is being called “Emily” in the media, was in the Phoenix Children’s Hospital. She had been there about a month, and was receiving chemotherapy. An infection forced doctors to amputate part of her right arm and to place a catheter in her heart.
Before the device could be taken out, Norma Bracamontes removed “Emily” from the hospital. The mother changed her daughter’s clothing, took out her IV, and walked her out of the hospital.
The catheter is still inside “Emily’s” heart. It is not intended to be left there forever. Doctors say that if it is not removed soon it increases the risk of “Emily” contracting an infection. According to the doctors, this could result in the girl’s death in “a matter of days”.
So far, police have located “Emily’s” mother, Norma Bracamontes. They have also located her father, Luis Bracamontes. He is a Mexican citizen with a United States resident alien identification card and was stopped by Border Patrol when he crossed from Mexico to Arizona. The girl, and her mother, are citizens of the United States.
Police have not been able to locate “Emily”. Her parents are not telling the police where she is at. The parents haven’t been charged with a crime at this time, (in the hopes that they will bring their daughter back to the hospital before something tragic happens). Police say that the mother’s motivation for removing her daughter from the hospital is “unknown”.
Image by Tammra McCauley on Flickr