When we originally came in, the pediatric oncologist we talked to told us that they (doctors) had learned a lot in the past 30 years on how to treat leukemia and that this was not a “doom and gloom” diagnosis anymore. Based on the established criteria, Elliot is classified as standard risk pre-B Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). With this type they claim a cure rate of 90%. The total treatment plan is 3 years. The first six months are supposed to be the toughest. Over the course of his treatment we were told to plan on 3-4 more inpatient hospitalizations for a type of chemo he needs to receive, but they attempt to do as much of it as possible on an outpatient basis. He most likely will have unplanned hospital admissions if he develops an infection due to being immune-suppressed.
The treatment is broken up into a few phases. The first is called induction. This lasts for about a month. He will get a total of 4 different types of chemo during this phase, as well as being on steroids. The goal is to put him in remission by the end of this phase. On the 29th day of treatment he will have another bone marrow biopsy and lumbar puncture, which will help them see how effective the treatment has been. He will require weekly lab work at the clinic. This will be done by finger stick most of the time due to infection risk associated with accessing his port.
One of the values we will keep track of is his AGC, absolute granulocyte count (also called ANC or absolute neutrophil count). This value tells us his ability to fight infection. Normally, in healthy people this value will be above 2000. When it gets under 500 he is more susceptible to infections, but they get very concerned if it gets to zero. His when we were discharged was 300.
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