Biopsy Results: The results were not what we had hoped. The blasts are gone as I mentioned previously which is the silver lining on an otherwise dark cloud. The abnormal cells that mark Eric's disease (NUP98 rearrangement) are approx 78% and his donor cells are down to only 10%. Eric's oncologist does not believe that we will be able to get the donor cells back this time, as we did last time, which led to Eric's stability from April to September. Of course, that doesn't stop us from hoping.
In the meantime, Eric will start another round of treatment on Monday. It is a repeat of the treatment he completed 2.5 weeks ago and the intent is to maintain him where he's at. This is the silver lining. If the blasts were to take off, he would have to go into hospital and be treated with much stronger chemotherapies that would kill everything. I had a brief discussion with the doctor about longer term next steps, but for now have elected to focus on this round of treatment starting on Monday and staying out of the hospital over Christmas. For this next round of treatment, Eric will have 5 days of IV chemo, but we are able to do this in the outpatient clinic this time. It does mean driving to the hospital for 5 days which Eric is not a fan of, but its quite a short infusion, so we are able to avoid rush hour. Additionally, Eric has been feeling really good the last week or so and is not looking forward to feeling poorly again. So for now, we'll take hopes and prayers that this treatment stimulates the donor cells to take over again, that we are able to stay out of the hospital, and that Eric feels better than last time!
At Eric's checkup last week, we learned that his platelets were only 6. Thank heaven he didn't get a bleeding nose or injury prior to his appointment because driving madly to the hospital while he is bleeding uncontrollably does not sound fun. So he had a platelet transfusion. On the plus side, I did learn that we can use Reactine instead of Benadryl for one of the pre-meds so he doesn't have to get groggy. We tried it last Friday and it worked, so did it again this week. His hemoglobin was still okay after the transfusion last week. He still hit Kristina, Child Life Specialist, up for a Lego set, but this time he asked for the smaller one since it would be a shorter day with only one transfusion instead of two.
Friday evening after his check up, we headed to the Coquitlam Express BCHL hockey game where Eric had been invited to drop the puck for #hockeyfightscancer night. It was a special night for our family made more special by the families who joined us.
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