Monday 31st May 2010

Great news - Luke is still in remission after the last cycle of chemo.
It's great to know that he is responding so well to the treatment. One of the bone marrow samples went to Sydney where they test for minute traces of leukaemia. Apparently this was all clear. The only test they do not have a result of is a cryogenetics test. This is to see if there are any abnormal chromosones that have returned. This will take a bit longer to get the results of but all indications are that it should also be clear.

So today Luke started the next round of chemo. This cycle will go for 7 weeks. He was due to have a lumbar puncture at 12.30.He has the lumbar punctures under xray now as they had trouble last time due to scar tissue build up. The xray guides them to the correct place in the spine. Murray and Luke got there at 11.45 and when it was time to go down to imaging the chemo drug needed to inject in his spine wasn't ready so they missed that appointment slot. They sat around waiting for a timeslot to become available but later in the afternoon the xray machine broke down. There was then talk that they would do the lumbar puncture manually on the ward as per the early days - but they decided against it. So the plan at this stage is that the lumbar puncture is now booked for 9.30am tomorrow morning under xray (assuming they have fixed the machine!!). The boys ended up walking in the door at 6.30pm as they then had to wait around for his normal chemo drugs via his central line. He is getting vincristine and methotrexate.

I've just remember on the last blog there was mention that we were moving to ward 14A and that posed problems with blood tests and chemo on weekends. As it turned out when we saw the doctor last Thursday she said the decision had gone full circle and that we would be staying on ward 14B in room 22 for chemo and under OOS (Oncology Outreach service). It apparently was too hard to work out the logistics of Luke's protocol around Monday to Friday hours. So it was best to keep him where he was and with what was working.

Time to get to bed .... I'll update you next week.