From The Past: July 11, 2007
I asked Kevin “guest blog” for tonight. When you read over his words, you will understand why. You will probably have to read it twice actually. He said he tried to make it as easy to understand as possible, however Leukemia is complicated.
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Tami did not mention that her mom had a fever of 101 on Monday. They drew blood and took other samples from several locations and then, took an x-ray. We were told today that she had a very bad bacterial infection which they have taken care of. Fortunately it was caught early or it could have been “very serious”. She has no immune system right now. Her white blood cell count, which fights infections, is at less than 0.1%. Killing off the white blood cells and the bone morrow is what chemotherapy does. Tami wanted to remind people that if you visit, wash your hands before you enter her room and if you are sick, think you might be sick, or have been exposed to someone who is sick you should not visit at all. We know you love and care for her and want to show your support but it is much more dangerous for Sharon if she is exposed to germs.
Today the doctor came in and had a long talk with us. We have been waiting for him to tell us the specific type of Leukemia she has. We already knew it was Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) but now we know the sub-type is Complex Cytogenetics. He said that under the French-American-British classification table it would be an M2 AML. He preferred the Complex Cytogenetics AML terminology. He also said she has a unique form of Leukemia. Sharon’s chromosome setup for Leukemia is not even documented anywhere that he could find. This does not mean it cannot be treated but that the odd chromosomes increase her risk from intermediate to intermediate/high.
Basically it boils down to a few major factors. If she goes into complete remission with this round of chemotherapy (this might include one more series of chemo within the next week or 2) then she has a very high chance of the remission lasting a long time. The doctor recommends a bone marrow transplant even if she does go into remission. The survival rate increases 20% with the transplant over chemotherapy alone.
If she cannot be brought into remission, he will still do a transplant but the survival rate is greatly reduced. That is not to say she would not recover, only that the chances are much smaller.
They are going to do another bone marrow biopsy next week. This will tell them if the chemotherapy has worked and brought the percent of Leukemia blasts (like cells) down to less than 5%. The doctor actually suspects, based on experience, that the number of Leukemia blasts will still be 20% or greater and another round of chemo will be needed (as mentioned before). He said this was common and would not be a surprise. After the second round of chemo they will do another bone biopsy and check the blast numbers. If they are under 5% then she will be in complete remission and will get to come home when her white count increases enough to be safe and no complications arise (10-25 days from the end of the second chemo).
Right now all we can do is wait and hope she is in complete remission and that she will not need the second round of chemo next week.