KESJ: 19 September 2009

Saturday, September 19, 2009

19 September 2009

T+4. Jeremy's temperature fluctuated last night, and hit 38 degrees this morning. This means they took blood cultures to determine if there is any infection. He had platelets today as his platelet count was low.

Last night was a restless night for Eleanor as Jeremy seemed to be in some discomfort. Jeremy complained of pain in his tummy in the morning, so they stopped the feeds and hooked up the morphine. They restarted the feeds later and he did not complain or suffer further discomfort. Jeremy ended up sleeping/resting for most of the day.

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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.