KESJ: 26 March 2010

Saturday, March 27, 2010

26 March 2010

T+192

Stephanie and Jeremy finished Week 9 of school by attending the Year 2 Easter Egg Hunt! Wearing latex gloves (because of their allergies!), they excitedly looked for Easter eggs which were melting very fast in this hot weather! Then they had fun giving out the eggs that they had found, and enjoying their own dairy-free nut-free chocolate.

No comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

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.