KESJ: 3 August 2009

Monday, August 3, 2009

3 August 2009

Today was a very busy day at hospital. Jeremy had 5 appointments - a checkup at hospital clinic, and 4 pre-bone marrow transplant reviews. Jeremy was such a good patient and obligingly opened his mouth for the dentist, lay still for a bone mineral density scan at nuclear medicine (where the machine took a picture of his whole skeleton), continued to lie still for a CT scan (fungogram), and listened carefully at his audiology review. The doctor is pleased with Jeremy's recovery from his fever and hopefully Jeremy's blood counts will be OK so that can have his next bone marrow aspirate next Monday.

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.