KESJ: 28 September 2009

Monday, September 28, 2009

28 September 2009

Jeremy's high fevers continued throughout today, but thankfully his blood pressure remained stable. He still managed to sit up and play a game of Agitation (also known as Trouble) with the play therapist, and also to experiment with the electronic drum pad that the music therapist brought to his room!

As nothing has been grown from his blood cultures (thus indicating no bacterial infection), he had a CT scan (or fungogram) this afternoon to see if a fungal infection is causing his high fevers. However, the doctors are hoping that his high fevers mean that his new bone marrow is starting to engraft - and we are praying that this is the case! The proof will be if his blood counts over the next few days start to show the existence of some white blood cells.

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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.