Our son Justin (now 19 years old) was diagnosed with VWD type 1 at the age of 6 after losing his first tooth.  As a baby and toddler, Justin was an "easy bruiser." I took him to his pediatrician multiple times, always to hear that he was fine and his bruises were "normal." When he was 5 years old, Justin had tubes put in his ears and ended up needing emergency surgery 12 hours later to tie off a bleeding vessel. At that point I took him to another pediatrician, who ran the same tests and declared him "perfectly normal." No one would listen to me until that first tooth came out.  By the time we made it to Children's Hospital, his hemoglobin was low because he had lost so much blood!

Justin's experiences helped us when our son Cooper (now 9 years old) came along. When Cooper needed treatment for a hematoma at 4 months of age, we were suspicious that he also had a bleeding disorder. Four months later, Cooper was officially diagnosed with VWD type 1. Our journey hasn't been easy, but we have armed ourselves with knowledge and try to educate anyone who will listen!