KESJ: 9 September 2009

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

9 September 2009

Jeremy was such a good boy and lay so still during his TBI sessions today - he didn't need to have a general anaesthetic, and was just happy to watch The Land Before Time on a portable DVD player! He has two 30 minute sessions each day - at 8.30am and at 3.30pm. For each session, he has to lie in a special perspex bed, while radiation is beamed onto one side of his body for 15 minutes. Then his perspex bed is rotated 180 degrees, and radiation is beamed onto the other side of his body for 15 minutes.

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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.