The key number we watch is the blasts count. This number is the amount of abnormal cells counted in a random sample of 100 white blood cells in his blood. What has been concerning over the past few weeks was the numbers were not coming down as they should. When he was admitted it was in the 40s and even last week it was as high as 60.

Finally we have seen the numbers come down! Yesterday it was 11 and today it was 10. We are so thankful to hear this good news.

Today we had another round of Vinchristine. We are starting to see the hair fall out. I was not looking forward to this part 🙁

Cameron’s pick line moved today so that it’s not pointing down at his heart but up like in his neck. No idea how that happens but looked pretty dramatic on the xray. So the first solution they had was to power flush the line with saline to force to go back to where it was. If that didn’t work we were looking at possibly exchanging the line.

Cameron is not a fan of his pick line being messed with so it was setting up for a not so laid back Saturday.

Well we got the power flush and it set exactly back where it should have! Even the doctor couldn’t believe how well it situated. So crisis averted, and now on to more important issues like spaghetti 🙂

Cameron completed his chemo last night. Everything went fine. Unfortunately before that they had to change his dressing for his pick line. He didn’t do so well with that lol.

He has been having some serious food cravings lately. Yesterday morning he woke up at 7am crying for Lay’s potato chips and ramen noodles. This morning it was steak. And I’m talking in tears for a steak haha. I had to explain to him that steakhouses aren’t open at 6 am. We settled on a hot dog.

Today looks pretty uneventful. We have a chest xray because they want to check the pick line. Other than that a pretty easy Saturday.

So the original plan was for the additional chemo to be given on Mondays along with his Vinchristine. Unfortunately his blasts counts came back high, and it doesn’t seem to be lowering as it should. The doctors have decided to start the additional chemo today and have it given on Fridays

• Induction — to kill the leukemia cells in the blood and bone marrow and put the disease into remission (a return to normal blood cell counts)
• Consolidation/intensification — to rid the body of any remaining cells that could begin to grow and cause the leukemia to return (relapse)
• Maintenance — to destroy any cancer cells that might have survived the first two phases

Today our journey took a new turn. We recieved the full results from Cameron’s biopsy from Day 5.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as good as we hoped it would be. The Leukemia cells that are in his blood have a slight genetic mutation called Intrachromosonal Amplification on Chromosone 21, or iAMP21 for short. Basically, when the leukemia cells multiply, they make additional copies of a strand on the 21st chromosone.

It turns out this mutation makes it more resistive to chemo. And this moves his risk level to very high. It doesn’t change our schedule too much this other than we will be adding more intense chemo treatments into the rotation. We will still leave sometime in mid-March and go on to the consolidation stage afterwards. The chances of being into full remission by this time is now about a 50-50 chance. If he is in remission, great we continue as planned in consolidation. If not, we will still continue in considation but with some additional treatments and will check with another biopsy at the end of the 8 weeks.

If at this time he is still not in remission, we will explore different options. Possibility CAR-T therapy, radiation, and bone marrow transplant.

But that is not now. Now, we need to focus on today. And we will. This is all in the Lord’s hands.

Today we started the second chemo treatment, Pegaspargase. Just as the Vinchristine, it was fast. It took a little longer, but by going through the pick line it was rather uneventful. And Cameron didn’t even notice anything was being done.