December 19, 2011

Praise the Lord, SD is in remission!

At our clinic visit today, SD was declared officially in remission (and it turns out he's been in remission for a week)! We are elated over the news, but of course there's still a long road to go. We are now praying that SD will stay in remission.

"Remission" does not mean "cured." Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a type of blood cancer where some immature white blood cells ("blasts") do not grow into maturity but rather reproduce more blasts. For this type of cancer, "remission" means that the leukemia cells cannot be detected in the bone marrow, the blood counts are within a normal range, and there are no other visible symptoms of the disease.

In SD's case, his most recent spinal fluid draws also show no leukemia.

There are usually about 100 billion leukemia cells in a child's body at the time of diagnosis. 99.9% of these are killed during the first month of intesive chemotherapy. This reduces the cancer to the point where it's undetectable (remission), but there are still an estimated 100 million leukemia cells that must be killed in the next few years.

If you're interested in more information, the American Cancer Society has a Childhood Leukemia Guide - just remember that SD has ALL (Acute Lymphocytic/Lymphoblastic Leukemia).

We specifically asked the nurse about what "remission" meant for SD, and whether he could be considered in remission. She did some calling and confirmed that yes, he is considered in remission already! Praise the Lord!

His blood counts were good, too! His hemoglobin continued to drop below 10, so he's somewhat anemic, but not to the point of needing a transfusion.

Even though we received this wonderful news, our clinic visit wasn't exactly the smoothest. SD had one of his least restful nights Sunday night, waking up several times throughout the night (usually wanting to get up and eat). He wasn't wild about going into the clinic, either; we are hoping that he doesn't get a lasting fear of doctors/hospitals as a result of all of this during his early years.

They had some trouble accessing his port today. The "accessing" is usually a simple matter of sticking the port with a pin and drawing blood. Today the blood wouldn't come out; the nurse said that it's not unusual, especially when children are on steroids. What actually happened is that the blood in the tube clotted - this is the tube in his chest that goes from the port into his vein. They placed a blood thinner of some kind into the port (just into the tube, not his blood stream), gave it 30 minutes, and then drew it back out. After that, they were able to draw blood without any problem.

Unfortunately, this increased the time we were in clinic, and SD just decided he had had enough. He was sick and tired of that place. He started screaming until he tired himself out, then rested for a bit, and then started screaming again. This cycle continued until we left.

On our way out, we ran into Amanda, whose son has a more serious kind of cancer than SD. Every time we go to the hospital, we are reminded that ALL really isn't that bad.

Praises:

• SD is in remission!
• We only have one week of Decadron remaining. We are looking forward to getting rid of those side effects! After the 27th, SD will not have any Decadron for at least a month, and he'll never have it over such a long period of time again.

Prayer Requests:

• SD will stay in remission.
• SD will not get sick this week, so that we'll be able to bring him to church on Christmas. That would be a wonderful Christmas present!