KESJ: 5 July 2009

Sunday, July 5, 2009

5 July 2009

Jeremy finished his 5 days of Mitozantrone and Cytarabine, and was very pleased to be discharged from hospital this afternoon. On Wednesday he will go to hospital clinic for more chemo, and will also visit the radiation clinic at the adults hospital - he will not be having any radiation on Wednesday, it will just be for him to become familiar with the doctors, nurses and equipment there, so hopefully when he does have radiation, he will not need a general anaesthetic.

The doctor also told us that she expects him back in hospital by the weekend for another prolonged fever!

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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.