This morning Jeremy went to hospital clinic for the start of his 4th week of Cytarabine. We also met the bone marrow transplant doctor who told us that
- Eleanor needs to have her blood taken again for tissue typing, because of an administrative error last time this was done
- It is unlikely that Eleanor will be a match for Jeremy - they are more interested in looking at the parents' tissue type to help them find a match for him
- We will not know until after the Day 79 bone marrow aspirate as to whether or not Jeremy will be classified as high risk and therefore will require a bone marrow transplant - apparently there are several different factors that they take into consideration at a molecular level, and it will not be just simply whether there are no blast cells in his bone marrow as at Day 79
- However, the transplant team will start searching now for a matching donor from their worldwide database, just in case he does need a bone marrow transplant (which hopefully he doesn't!)
He also reminded us that if people would like to help Jeremy, then the best way would be to either donate blood (visit your local Australian Red Cross collection centre - http://donateblood.com.au/) or register to become a bone marrow donor. If you are between 18 and 40 years of age and in good health, then you can join the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry - http://www.abmdr.org.au/. Although you cannot donate blood or bone marrow specifically for Jeremy, all leukaemia patients need many blood transfusions during their treatment and some may also require bone marrow transplants.
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