So WHY would it not have been hemophilia?

[Robert_Hall]

Next you will be asking for DNA of all things, and obscure medical records, all in dispute of course. Where will this obsession stop ?

[Forum Admin]

It stops now, we've had fun, but gone too off topic. I'm as guilty as any on that. Besides, I'll have to have all my teeth pulled so my dental records can't be compared if this goes any further...
Back to the point, please.
FA

[Kimberly]

Just finished a 14 hour shift at work and someboby let the air out off my bike tyres so a long walk home. Any hoo, Bear, bleeding from the umbilicus to this extent IS NOT NORMAL.Sometimes there is a tiny ooze when the cord seperates but not enough to mention in a diary, surely. By the way FA you are a very handsome chap.

[AGRBear]

Sorry Forum Admin. [Bob],  my fingers added an "s" and made you a "she" yesterday in my post.  I apologize.  It does seem that my error created fun for some of you  .

The description Gibbs gives on Alexei's injury sounds treadful and as I read it,  my stomach turned and my motherly instincts kicked into full gear....  Yes, it must have been awful for Alexandra and his sisters to stand by and not be able to ease his pain.

Thank you for the source and copying part of it for us to read.  No matter how many books I buy I'm always missing  something because I don't have all the books on the Romanovs.

So, what do we know about Dr. Derevenko?  Is there a thread on him?  Evidently Dr. Botkin chose Dr. Derevenko to treat Alexei's blood disorder.  Why him?  Where did he go to school?  What experience did he have with hemophilia?

AGRBear

[lexi4]

Bear,
I found a couple of other passages in Gillard's book I thought you might like to read.

Autumn, 1913
"One morning I found the mother at her son's bedside. He had had a very bad night. Dr. Derevenko was anxious, as the haemorrhage had not been stopped and his temperature was rising. The inflammation had spread further and the pain was even worse than the day before. The Czarevitch lay in bed groaning piteously. His head rested on his mother's arm and his small, deathly white face was unrecogfnisable. At times, the groans ceased and he murmured one word "Mummy!" in which he expressed all his suffering and distress. His mother kissed him on the hair, forehead and eyes as if the touch of her lips could have relieved his pain and restored some of the life which was leaving him. Think of the tortures of that mother, an importent witness of her son's martydom in those hours of mortal anguish - a mother who knoew that she herself was the cause of his sufferings, that she had transmitted to him the terrible disease against which human science was powerless!A Now I understand the secret tragedy of her life! How easy it was to reconstruct the stages of that long Calvary." p. 43


April 12, 1917 "Alexis Nicolaevitch confined to bed, as since yesterday he has had a violent pain in the groin caused by a strain. He has been so well this winter. It is to be hoped it is nothing serious." P.258


April 15, 1917 "Alexis Nicolaevitch in great pain yesterday and today. It is one of his severe attacks of haemophilia."

[Belochka]

Besides, I'll have to have all my teeth pulled so my dental records can't be compared if this goes any further...
FA

At least you would be willing to submit to a DNA analysis, I am sure, to prove your noble pedigree!  

[pinklady]

Here are some more:
From Robert Massie
From the beginning the disease of hemophilia clung over the sunny child like a dark cloud. The first ominous evidence had appeared at six weeks, when the boy bled from the navel. As he began to crawl and toddle, the evidence grew stronger, his tumbles caused large, dark blue swellings on his arms and legs. When he was three and a half, a blow on the face brought a swelling which completely closed both eyes.
Once the Tsarevich almost died from a nosebleed.

[pinklady]

I have found the exact passage that relates to Alexei from Nicholas diary when Alexei was 6 weeks old. From Nicholas and Alexandra by Massie.
" Alix and I have been very much worried. A hemorrhage began this morning without the slightest cause from the navel of our small Alexis. It lasted with but a few interruptions until evening. We had to call.....the surgeon Fedorov who at seven o'clock applied a bandage. The child was remarkably quiet and even merry but it was a dreadful thing to have to live through such anxiety."
The next day "This morning there again was some blood on the bandage but the bleeding stopped at noon. The child spent a quiet day and his healthy appearance somewhat quieted our anxiety."
On the third day the bleeding stopped. But the fear born those days in the Tsar and his wife continued to grow. The months passed and Alexis stood up in his crib and began to crawl and to try to walk. When he stumbled and fell, little bumps and bruises appeared on his legs and arms. Within a few hours, they grew to dark blue swellings. Beneath the skin his blood was failing to clot. The terrifying suspician of his parents was confirmed. Alexis had hemophilia.

[etonexile]

Yes...one can barely imagine the anxiety of the parents...especially Alexandra....who must have known how this disease came to her son.....

[AGRBear]

Data from Forum Admin's post: >>"For a month or so all seemed well with little Alexis, but it was then noticed that the Tsarevitch was bleeding excessively from the umbilicus (a relatively uncommon feature of haemophilia.<<  
 
If this is not a common feature of hemophilia than is this event to be listed as a sypmtom on our list of why we would think Alexei had hemophilia or the list of why we would think Alexei did not have hemophilia?

And what spelling are we using "hemophilia" or "haemophilia"?  I am using the American College Dic..

AGRBear

[Forum Admin]

hemophilia in the US. haemophilia in UK/Australia and Commonwealth. Both acceptable spellings.  The reference to the umbilicus is "pro" hemophilia. The specialist is acknowledging that while it is "not common in haemophilia" it still IS heamophilia.

[AGRBear]

Why isn't it common?

AGRBear

[etonexile]

Do Yanks know the term..."bloody minded"...?

Just wondered...

[lexi4]

This one doesn't. What does it mean?

[etonexile]

...Stubborn,willful,difficult....tres useful expression....