Dunlap boy battles disease

By Corrina Sisk-Casson

Correspondent

DUNLAP, Tenn. — Cooper Moore seems like a typical 21/2-year-old. He loves dogs, enjoys playing with toy tools and watching “Handy Manny” on television.

But unlike other children, Cooper has been sick since he was 11 months old. He bruises with the slightest touch. A feeding tube runs from one nostril and tucks into the top of his shirt.

His teacher, Jasmine Mitchell at Discovery Lane Day School in Spring City, Tenn., said that sometimes it’s hard to believe how ill he is until you see him on a bad day.

“I have seen Cooper go from being bouncy and happy one day to so sick the next,” she said. “Overall, however, Cooper is a little trouper. For what he has been through in the past two years, it’s amazing.”

It took a slew of medical tests before doctors discovered the root of Cooper’s problems — hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, or HLH — a rare, often fatal disease in which abnormal numbers of white blood cells, which usually help fight off infections, accumulate in tissue and cause organ damage.

In Cooper’s case, the damage was in his liver, which swelled until it took up most of his abdominal cavity. The disease isn’t cancer, but the treatment is similar. Cooper has been through chemotherapy and is about to do another round. Toward the end of March, he may have a bone marrow transplant.

“A lot of people ask me how I’m doing with it and say I’m so strong,” said Devin Moore, Cooper’s mother. “They just don’t understand how I’m doing it. But in my mind, Cooper’s not sick. Physically, looking at him, he doesn’t look sick. He’s full of life.

“He does have his bad days after chemo. … But I give him his medicine and he’s fine. Like after it gets in his system, he’s down and playing.”

It all started when she saw little spots over Cooper’s body and noticed he was running a fever.

At first, doctors thought it was a virus. But the spots got worse, and laboratory work revealed low levels of blood platelets, a key element in clotting.

At Erlanger hospital, Cooper was diagnosed with ITP, short for idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. It meant that his blood cells were normal except for the platelets, but the condition is something that most children recover from within a year.

“When you don’t have any platelets, you could just touch him and he would bruise,” Mrs. Moore said. “He was purple from head to toe. His diaper would leave bruises. When I carried him on my hip and my hand was on his leg to support him, my hand print would be on his leg.”

In a toddler who’s learning how to walk and constantly bumping into things and falling, ITP is especially dangerous because Cooper could bleed internally and no one would know, she said.

Doctors prescribed steroids, but he still was sick.

Last spring, doctors decided something else was going on. Tests came back negative until a new symptom showed up — high levels of liver enzymes. Testing a piece of his liver, doctors discovered HLH.

The Moores, including Cooper’s mother, father and sister, will travel to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville this month for tests. If approved, he will receive his bone marrow transplant.

Mrs. Moore and Cooper would stay in the hospital for about four to six weeks after the transplant, then move to the Ronald McDonald House for another four to six weeks.

“I do know there will be a point at Vanderbilt that he won’t be as active,” Mrs. Moore said. “He will be on stronger chemo up there that will knock him out. … And I know that there will be a point up there when it will hit me.”

Mrs. Mitchell said she has seen the family go through an extended ordeal.

“I love Cooper so much,” she said. “I want him to beat HLH and have the childhood he deserves.”

Corrina Sisk-Casson is based in Dunlap. Contact her at corrinacasson1@aol.com.