Hi everyone! We finally made it to "day one" of Standard Interim. This will prove to be a very confusing, long process. From what we were told yesterday, every single treatment in this course, is count dependent. Dang! There is a treatment every 10 days, but if her ANC is not over 750, then they re-draw blood in 4 days and go from there.
This is how our week started out... Monday I picked Alex up from her GREAT weekend with her dad. They had a fantastic time and everything went smoothly. Thank GOD! We had a MRI appointment later that day so we went into the clinic early so they could draw some blood to see if they could start her new phase on Tuesday. This was 3pm... They took the blood and we were downstairs ready for the MRI. Once she was inside the machine (dang, I forgot to take a picture of it!) I ran back upstairs to see if the blood results were back... It is now 5pm... The lab has lost her sample and Alex is in the MRI machine for 45 minutes, so we wait... Once she came out of the machine, the lab sent someone down to take some more blood and we all went back up to clinic to wait for the results. We were the only ones in there besides the nurse. We are quite close now. Anywho... by 6:45 we still did not have final results but the ANC was only looking to be 610... not enough to start treatment, but they wanted us to wait because the final tally can sometime produce a few more cells. BUT... of course in our world things didn't happen quickly or smoothly and they sent us home and wanted us to come back in the morning for another sample. At 7pm we headed home. Jeeze! At 7:30am they wanted us back in to give some more blood. Once we were in the examination room waiting for the doctor, we found out what the deal was the night before. When the doctor came in, he said that the lab didn't like the look of some of the cells and they wanted him to look at them. Turns out that everything was normal and good. I am glad that I didn't go home knowing this. Anywho... the night did us some good because she grew a couple more white cells through the night and she had 900. Enough to start.
Alex was first taken down to the RTU (Rapid Treatment Unit) and they sedated her and she had a spinal tap, where they administered chemo, and they also did a bone marrow biopsy to make sure everything is still in remission. We should find out about that on Friday. After she came out of recovery we went back upstairs to clinic, and she got two different doses of chemo. Vincristine and Methotrexate. This is the first time she has gotten Methotrexate through the IV. This type of chemo will be given every 10 days and they will gradually increase the dosage with each treatment. This is called the Capizzi method. We are lucky that we were randomized to this form of Methotrexate, because if she would have gotten the High Dose Methotrexate, she would have had to have every treatment "in patient". Not fun! Anyway... everything went smoothly and we were home by 1pm. This was a record time visit. Yae!!!
So, next Thursday she will go in again... if her counts are good. SO, please send bunches of good blood cell vibes. We need a lot!!!
Thanks for all the messages, the thoughts and prayers. They are very much appreciated.
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