KESJ: 18 October 2009

Sunday, October 18, 2009

18 October 2009

T+33

Jeremy's fever breached 39 degrees this morning. Thankfully, he responded well to panadol, and it dropped back down into the 37s later in the morning and he stayed fever free for the rest of the day.

We had some good news today. The doctor came in and told us that the preliminary results of the skin biopsy indicate that Jeremy's rash is consistent with GVHD, and in this instance, they would label this as grade 1 GVHD, which they would not usually treat.

They capped off Jeremy's lines today for a few hours, so he cheekily played hide and seek with Dr KonKon in his room. Stephanie came with Dr KonKon to visit and play, and they also fulfilled a very important objective of restocking the soy ice cream!

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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.