Friday 30th April 2010

Well where did April go to?
I can't believe it's been 3 months since Luke was first diagnosed with leukaemia and we are so proud about how Luke has handled the situation. Most of us can only imagine what he must be feeling and going through. From the outside he may look fine and healthy, but inside his body is be screaming out a whole different story.

Luke's blood levels have been all over the shop at the moment due to the chemo. He has had 2 more blood transfusions since last Wednesday. 2 units last Thursday and 2 more on Sunday. What a little vampire! Unfortunately this means about 6 hours sat at the hospital.Last Saturday and this Thursday he needed some platelets to stop him bruising.
Today was a bit of a disjointed day. We went in to get his chemo via the central line - this only takes about 15 minutes to run through. We left the hospital with me saying that was one of the shortest visits I've had with Luke in a long time. We came home and I ducked out to the shops to get some much needed food in the house. I'd just entered the first aisle and got a call from Luke saying the hospital had just called and said we needed to go back in to get an anti thrombin III injection. This injection is to stop blood clots going to the brain. So we ended up back in the hospital for about an hour.

Lukes blood levels over the week have been:
Haemaglobin: 22Apr-69 /23Apr-81 /24Apr-76 /25Apr-76 /26Apr-99 /27Apr-94 /28Apr-87 /29Apr-89 /30Apr-84
White Cell Count: 22Apr-0.6 /23Apr-0.7 /24Apr-0.7 /25Apr-0.8 /26Apr-0.9 /27Apr-1.1 /28Apr-1.4 /29Apr-1.0 /30Apr-1.2
Platelets: 22Apr-28 /23Apr-10 /24Apr-8 /25Apr-23 /26Apr-18 /27Apr-17 /28Apr-12 /29Apr-16 /30Apr-49
Neutrophils: 22Apr-0.24 /23Apr-0.23 /24Apr-0.16 /25Apr-0.21 /26Apr-0.56 /27Apr-0.37 /28Apr-0.46 /29Apr-0.45 /30Apr-0.45

Luke has really had a long period of being neutropenic this cycle - we are now up to day 18 where he needs to avoid public places to avoid infection.
However we are on the home stretch for this cycle. He only has 2 more "bee stings" on Sunday and Wednesday. He will then be left alone till the 17th May to let his blood recover. Then he will have his bone marrow biopsy to see if he is still in remission. I'm not sure how long after the biopsy he will have before he starts the next cycle - Interim maintenance that will go for 7 weeks.
So we are really hopeful that he will have a good 2-3 weeks break from any chemo.

I mentioned on the last blog that my Aunt and Uncle who were stranded in Singapore might have to return to Australia due to the volcano. They did come back last Thursday 22nd April. When they arrived it still appeared that the earliest that they would be able to get back to the UK was the 7th May. So I contacted a friend at Qantas (I used to work for Qantas) and they were able to assist them in getting a flight back home yesterday - 29th April. It was marvellous to see them again and I know Mum & Dad really enjoyed having them stay again - especially because Mal and Les went to work and painted a fence and gardened for them! Talk about slave labour!! Mal and Les assured us they enjoyed doing it!

Talk to you all next week....