We will resume our Monday hospital visits tomorrow morning. First they will draw Lucas's blood to check counts. If Lucas's ANC is over 750 (that's the harder one), and platelets counts over 75 (that's the easy one), he will start his Consolidation treatment. I compiled the list of drugs Lucas will use at each stage of the treatment (AALL 1131) and linked it to the top right corner. The Consolidation phase for High Risk ALL is much more intense than the version for Standard Risk ALL. This phase lasts at least 8 weeks -- since treatment will be delayed if ANC and platelets don't meet the requirement. This phase involves a total of 4 different IV (through the vein) chemo, 1 or 3 IT (through lumber puncture/spinal tap) chemo (depending on the randomized clinical trials), and 1 PO (taken orally, so tough on liver) chemo. Two of the IV chemo and the PO chemo are new to Lucas. Let's hope Lucas would tolerate those drugs okay.
Tomorrow, if ANC and platelets meet the requirement, we will spend a whole day, since one of the IV chemo is so tough on bladder that he needs to have a lot of fluid flushing through his system. So we have been trying to let him drink more tonight. He will then receive 8 hours of fluid tomorrow before the actual chemo. One of the IV chemo drugs also require 4 days of consecutive use -- so we need to decide whether we will administer it at home or go to clinic every day for it.
The hard thing is that Lucas is pretty much back to his healthy state right now -- going up and down stairs sometimes on his own, running after his brother, etc. We will surely miss that for a while as the multiple chemo will make he feel pretty sick for the coming weeks.
Lucas is such a brave boy, so happy that the first stage result is good。 Pray for him to go throgh the next stage as smooth as it can be.
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