KESJ: 23 November 2009

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

23 November 2009

T+69

Jeremy stayed in hospital today, and he moved rooms twice!

In the morning, he was moved out of his standard twin room (which he did not share) and across the hall into a single room. This was a lovely bright room, with a nice outlook over the secret garden, but a slightly strange layout/configuration. However, not long after they arrived in their new room, they were informed that they would be moving back down to Camperdown ward. A patient down there needed to move to Variety ward, whereas Jeremy did not need to be in Variety as he did not have an infectious disease!

He had fun playing outside in the secret garden (watering rocks!), whilst his Camperdown room was being cleaned.

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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.