The Treatment Plan

Our caged bird... Had to put Jade in her
crib to play while tethered to the IV.

So, Jade completed day two of round two's chemo like a champ at about 9:30 this morning. Overnight, we had some issues with low blood pressure, which is a side effect of one the chemo drugs - etoposide. This happened at the beginning of the first round, when they slowed the infusion rate from one hour to four. They stopped the infusion, gave her some IV fluids over an hour and that seemed to do the trick.

Overall, this round of chemo will be almost identical to round one, except it will only run 8 days (two days less than round one.)  We're hopeful that Jade will weather this one as well as the first, but keep her appetite up to minimize how much time she spends hooked up to IV fluids and to avoid the feeding tube altogether.

We were psyched to hear a "bit of good news" from one of the team doctors the night before Jade was readmitted. The results of her bone marrow biopsy last Tuesday, February 28th were clean!  When Jade's ANC recovers after each round of chemotherapy a bone marrow biopsy will be performed to see how effective the chemo was on eliminating the leukemic cells. And the results revealed less than 1% leukemic cells (they can't say there are none because of limitations of the science, i.e. the instruments they use detect to .01, so there's a possibility that there is .001 leukemic cells and that's why we have four more rounds of chemo... to find and destroy any isolated remaining cells and prevent a future relapse.) Pretty awesome news, wethinks! According to www.cancer.gov, early response to therapy is predictive of outcome.  So, this is what we were all praying for.  We know Jade still has a long road ahead of her, but we'll take any bit of solid good news.  There are a few follow-up questions we'll have for her primary physicians here (what specific tests were used, etc.), but we're optimistic right now and very happy that they did not need to intensify her chemotherapy treatment... yet.

Right now, Jade's treatment road map calls for five rounds of chemotherapy.  The first two rounds are what they call "induction," and whose purpose is to bring blood counts back to normal and no detectable trace of the leukemia in the bone marrow.  The last three rounds are called "consolidation;" the purpose of these three rounds is to destroy any remaining, isolated leukemic cells. These rounds will be more intense in terms of the dosage of drugs Jade receives.


Here's what Round One and Round Two look like in terms of chemotherapy that Jade receives. 

Day 1: Cytarabine (15 minute infusions every twelve hours); Daunorubicin (one 6-hour infusion); Etoposide (one 4-hour infusion)
Day 2: Cytarabine (15 minute infusions every twelve hours); Etoposide (one 4-hour infusion)
Day 3: Cytarabine (15 minute infusions every twelve hours); Daunorubicin (one 6-hour infusion); Etoposide (one 4-hour infusion)
Day 4: Cytarabine (15 minute infusions every twelve hours); Etoposide (one 4-hour infusion)
Day 5: Cytarabine (15 minute infusions every twelve hours); Daunorubicin (one 6-hour infusion); Etoposide (one 4-hour infusion)
Day 6: Cytarabine (15 minute infusions every twelve hours);
Day 7: Cytarabine (15 minute infusions every twelve hours);
Day 8: Cytarabine (15 minute infusions every twelve hours);
Day 9: Cytarabine (15 minute infusions every twelve hours);
Day 10: Cytarabine (15 minute infusions every twelve hours).

Thanks for your continued prayers... 'til tomorrow.