KESJ: 2 April 2009

Thursday, April 2, 2009

2 April 2009

The doctor told us that they still do not know why Jeremy had a fever on Sunday night, however his fever on Tuesday night was probably due to the chemo drug Cytarabine. If he remains afebrile for 48 hours, then he can go home tomorrow! We will then continue with his current chemo treatment and review his progress on Day 79 when he will have another bone marrow aspirate - hopefully he will be in full remission (ie. no blast cells in his bone marrow) by Day 79.

The doctor also told us that the tissue typing results for Ken and Stephanie have come back and that they are not a match. She is still waiting for the results for Eleanor.

No comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

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.