Today Naaman went to clinic and his blood checked out fine. His ANC, a count related to white blood cells, is still 200 and needs to get up to 750 for him to start the next round of chemo. The good news is that his levels are steady not down, and also that the results from last week’s procedure show a dramatic decrease in the leukemia in his bone marrow. Given that his levels were crazy high in the beginning, this is great news. 🙂 That means we don’t need to talk about bone marrow transplant now, if ever.
The new news is that he tested positive for a mutation of pre-B cell ALL called ph-like ALL (I’ve seen it called this and similar names) which means he will need additional medicines with the regular chemo plan. Tip: don’t google it because the medical journals will just make you nervous! We decided to go with the doctor’s recommendation to participate in the research study for the medication, and of course continue onward with the next round of chemo, called consolidation.
We were scheduled for another lumbar puncture (LP) and chemo Thursday, and because I was such a squeaky (but polite) wheel, we are bringing him in Wednesday afternoon to check his levels and decide if he is ready for chemo. This is because whenever we have him fasting for an LP or other procedure, there is always a delay and we end up with a hangry monster who bites and screams for four hours – and rightfully so! He has no idea why we won’t feed him and it’s so sad. If they check him Wednesday afternoon, we can start Thursday already knowing/having ready blood transfusion, platelets, chemo.
Keep praying for our little guy! He is happy at home, binging Easy Mac, dancing to Moana, and chucking blocks at his mama. Dada has elevated to rock star status. When Naaman sees him, it’s like best surprise of his day. <3