KESJ: 14 July 2009

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

14 July 2009

1am - Jeremy wakes, but seems ok.
4am - Jeremy wakes, and feels hot to the touch. The fever has arrived - the temperature check shows 39.2 degrees. Phone call made to hospital, and all 4 of us get in the car to go for a drive. There was more traffic at this early hour than I had expected, but it was a smooth trip. Stephanie and I get back to try to catch more sleep, but it evades me...
Around 11am or so, they finally get a bed in Camperdown ward.
We made a second pilgrimage to Westmead today - the little man had asked me to go the shops to purchase 2 varieties of soy yoghurt and rice crackers!
Hopefully we all get a decent sleep tonight.

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.