KESJ: 18 March 2009

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

18 March 2009

This morning we all went to hospital to have our blood taken. Stephanie screamed down the hospital, even before the nurse had taken her blood! But she was happy to have her photo taken for the Oncology Children’s Foundation (Jeremy refused to take part) with the other children at the oncology clinic!

We will not know the blood results for a couple of weeks, as the blood needs to be sent off to the Red Cross for tissue typing.

Jeremy's next bone marrow aspirate has now been scheduled for 26 March 2009 instead of 25 March.

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Definitions

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) - a rapidly progressing cancer of the blood and bone marrow. ALL affects the type of developing white blood cells known as lymphocytes. It is the most common form of childhood leukaemia, and the most common type of childhood cancer. It also occurs in adults.

Blast cells - immature blood cells normally found in the bone marrow. Blast cells normally constitute up to 5% of all bone marrow cells. These cells divide and replenish all the normal blood cells in the marrow and circulating blood. Acute leukaemia is characterised by an accumulation of abnormal blast cells that take over the marrow and spill out into the blood stream.

Bone marrow transplant - the process of replacing bone marrow cells (stem cells) that are unhealthy, with stem cells that are healthy. The healthy stem cells are re-infused intravenously through the central line, after very strong chemotherapy and/or radiation to kill unhealthy stem cells. The re-infusion of healthy stem cells essentially rescues the patient from the chemotherapy and/or radiation, by enabling his or her bone marrow to start producing new blood cells.