No News is Good News ... (and give platelets!)

Yes, John, you're right.

Well most of the time no news is good news, I suppose sometimes it's not but in our case over the last week there has just been ... no news!

Today is/was Wednesday. Wednesdays are big days for us, we always have a treatment or procedure on a Wednesday. Wednesdays mark the beginning of the previous phase and the start of a new one.  Today marked the last day of the "induction phase." This is the aggressive treatment to try and induce the body into remission in short order.

We were at Children's hospital bright and early this morning for a post-induction bone marrow biopsy. And, oh, while we have you somewhat sedated, we're going to stick a needle in your spine again and squirt in another bit of poison. That okay? Great! Nothing wrong there but we always do that just in case!

Day 29 today. The first nine days when Alex was in the hospital were reasonably hellish as they hit one pretty hard with treatments. The last three weeks have been pretty manageable. We have gone in every ... Wednesday ... and Alex has received two different types of chemo. We get there at eight in the morning or so, they take some blood to analyze first and see if one needs a transfusion or anything. The chemo was administered quite quickly, in a few minutes, we wait around for a while to see the docs and then go home.

Today also marks the last day, for quite a while at least, of taking a steroid (Prednisone) which I noted earlier can have the side effect of being a big downer (particularly in tweens and teens) and also really distorts one's facial features, making the face very round, puffy and a bit elongated. Weird stuff, man, this cancer gig ain't easy. Hopefully these side effects start to diminish now.

We won't have full results from today's biopsy for several days. The people here will do their analysis but as Alex (like most ALL patients in North America) is part of a big study, some of the sample will be sent for further analysis. To a place somewhere in Texas. There they will take things to a molecular level and see if anything untoward shows up that is not detected by conventional means.

As one phase ends, another begins. This one is called the consolidation phase.  If we get the results we expect to (and if we don't it's pretty similar, they just turn it up to 11 for you Spinal Tap fans - in fact there are spinal taps weekly, regardless quite literally!) we will putting a lot more klicks on the odometer over the next two months.

Next Wednesday, Alex will get hit with some pretty heavy duty chemo cocktails. One of the drugs is quite hard on the kidneys so they give one fluids via an IV for an hour or more ahead of time and for a few hours afterwards (fortunately this is only weekly with some time off now and then). We'll be there for eight hours or so. I know this drug from a previous life and it's a tedious process. He will also have two other drugs, one intraevenously and the other is a pill (a pill he will take for the next three years actually).  Thursday through Saturday we will be there every day for the second iv drug, then a few days off and then repeat. Basically we will be going to the hospital daily four or five days a week. Iif things go well! If the don't, one is admitted.

All of these drugs tend to make one very sick. And they make your blood counts deteriorate to a point where one needs blood transfusions and is very susceptible to infections. Lots of fun.

You don't know what to expect until you're in it. Sometimes people tolerate it quite well, sometimes it hits hard. It is cumulative and gets tougher as time goes on. Often, coming off the prednisone and having the first few treatments, patients start to think, hey, this isn't so bad and then WHAM-O, they're on the floor as the second wave of starts to hit home.


But for now he has a week off. Ah!

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J, who is a rock star nurse (at VGH not Childrens) and is recovering from her 60k walk ( atta girl!) this past weekend for the Shoppers Drugmart Weekend to end Women's Cancers benefiting the BC Cancer Foundation (well done all, $2.4 million raised) wrote to remind me of something I already knew but sort of forgot.

Under the heading "what can you do?" I mentioned simply giving blood. J very correctly points out that for leukemia, lymphoma and other similar cancers (and a bunch of other reasons), giving platelets instead of whole blood is even more meaningful and I am kicking myself for forgetting that. It's a little more time consuming for the donor but is an invaluable help because platelets are always in short supply and they spoil very quickly. It's rare that things are delayed by blood not being available but platelets not being available often lead to delays, dangerous delays - we need platelets please!! Thanks.

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The 2011 Ride to Conquer Cancer is already cranking up and the website is alive and running. This is a great event. I have done our local Vancouver to Seattle ride both years and this year also did the Toronto - Niagara Ride. The Toronto Ride sold out in November last year so sign up early if you want to do it. Vancouver sold out in, I don't remember, April maybe, but the spots will go quickly this year I think - because it's a ton of fun! Despite us being vastly outnumbered, PH&N intend to reclaim the top fund raising title from Team Finn this year. Visit www.conquercancer.ca My page isn't quite finished yet but have a look. There are also rides in Montreal and Calgary.

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Rumour Department: there might be another bike ride in 2011, this one benefiting the Oncology department at BC Childrens. It's not me organizing it! I'll participate if I can, for sure, but I'm not on the inside and it might be beyond me. Sounds like a pretty intense ride with accordingly restricted numbers, not the big we-can-all-do-it R2CC ride. From what I understand, I don't see them competing with each other. Hope not. I hear it is tentatively scheduled for the first weekend of June.

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