Day 55 - Rita's in Remission!

That's the big news. Mom had 0% blasts in her bone marrow from the biopsy last Monday. This is a little complicated to understand because the word "remission" has been used in every day language to be synonymous with "cured", which it is not.

I'll attempt to explain this briefly... remission means, as we've previously mentioned, that the patient (Mom) has <1% blast cells (abnormal cells). Mom and her Doctors are still charged with keeping the blast cells from coming back - that's what Course 2, Course 3 and the Stem Cell Transplant will try to accomplish. In this type of illness, ALL, the blast cells can sometimes come back (relapse). There isn't a set equation for exactly how long "remission" has to be until the patient (Mom) is considered "cured" but it can be anywhere from 2-5 years based on a million circumstances and opinions. We're looking forward to that, but trying not to get hung up on the details because what matters now is that Mom is where she needs to be in order to proceed with the treatment.

Mom has completed Course 1 and 1A under the Pediatric Protocol, which many of you know. Now, she's moving back to the Standard Care Protocol, which the Doctors think will be easier on her liver. We don't know exactly what the differences are yet, but it appears to be types and dosages of the various Chemo drugs. Since most of us have no real frame of reference, this is probably too much information but that's the general overview of what we found out today.

Mom had low Potassium so today Dad and I ran to the grocery store while Mom received some intravenous Potassium supplement in the IV Clinic (with - you guessed it - a beeping pole). We stocked up on a list of suggested items from a pamphlet provided by Dr. Wetzler. Mom will be working hard on eating a lot of these fruits and vegetables - bananas, oranges, apricots, avocados, spinach, beans, potatoes, etc. and drinking plenty of fluids. Exercise is going to be important too.

Anyway, the Course 2 start day was delayed one more day. It will be starting tomorrow instead. This will be her new "big day" of 4 different kinds of Chemo. We weren't able to start today because... wait for it... the Lovenox shot!! Yup, that's right! AGAIN! We were smart enough to hold off this morning but in an interesting twist of events we now have to hold off for TWO days prior to these treatments. This was news to us. Apparently not to the Doctors and Nursing staff... but to us it was certainly a surprise! This blow was minor and softened greatly by the news of Mom's biopsy being so favorable.

Another early day tomorrow (poor Mom is not looking forward to a 7AM appointment), and a couple more important lessons learned. We're going to be submitting these to a fortune cookie company for consideration, although I'm not sure they'd fit on the wrapper:

• Instead of "A watched pot never boils" how about "A watched IV drip bag never runs out"?
• Instead of "No news is good news!" how about "No news is not preferred when important news regarding pre-treatment instructions should be delivered!!!"

Hey, if Confucius said it they'd pay attention. We are open for suggestions if anyone has any more thoughts.

Love,

Amy