KESJ: 27 July 2010

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

27 July 2010

T+315 or 45 weeks!

Look who Jeremy brought home from school today! His name is Bear and he has come to have some adventures with us (which will be duly photographed and written up in the class book). Bear visited us 2 years ago when Stephanie was in Kindy (he was called Recycle Bear back then!). We are trying not to think about where he has been and how dirty he actually might be!

After blowing some bubbles outside with Jeremy, Bear had to have a special medical sleep ...

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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.