KESJ: 15 December 2010

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

15 December 2010

T+456 or 15 months!

Jeremy had an uneventful visit to hospital clinic this morning - uneventful, because the results from last week's bone marrow aspirate were not back yet ...

He made it to school just after morning tea for his LAST DAY OF KINDY! He had an exciting day which ended in the whole school making a guard of honour in the playground for the Year 6 students.

Then late this afternoon, the bone marrow transplant doctor rang with the fantastic news - Jeremy's results are MRD Negative! PRAISE GOD!!!!!

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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.