Bone marrow biopsy results
Mina Brigitta had her official, pre-transplant bone marrow biopsy today. Good news, she's still in remission! They're sending the sample off to Seattle for another minimal residual disease test, but we probably won't get results back before next week. Hopefully this last round of chemo knocked her back down a bit. They also, finally, did a biopsy of the hemangioma on her left shoulder to make sure it's not a chloroma, or collection of leukemia cells. They've look at that thing a dozen times. Last year they did an ultrasound and then this February they did an MRI. Both times it looked fine, but they couldn't rule out a chloroma. Since the biopsy didn't turn up any cancer cells, I guess we can now rest assured it's just a hemangioma.
She was very good girl today through the whole ordeal, despite having nothing to eat or drink until after waking up from her anasthesia. She had to go to a dermatologist at 10 to look at the hemangioma, then fell asleep for 45 minutes on the way to the clinic, and then her noon procedure turned into a 2 PM procedure again. Then she had a 3 PM appointment with Dr. Loh, and then the workers were on strike at the hospital cafeteria, so Keri drove her home before giving her a proper meal. She made up for it with a big dinner of tortellini, then had a 9 PM snack of bread, cheese and avocado. She ate the avocado with a spoon, and was dipping everything in a bowl of olive oil.
Tomorrow we go to meet with the radiation therapists. Not really looking forward to that. We've had trouble making the decision to do the radiation. Keri and I both are sick about it, since many of the effects I listed yesterday are due to the radiation therapy. But after digesting all the information we could, the evidence seems to indicate the total body irradation may be somewhat better than the alternative, a drug called busulfan, at preventing relapse. The side effects of radiation are horrible, but the effects of busulfan are pretty bad too, and they don't have as much data about the long-term effects. It was a very hard decision, and we had to go against our instinct a little bit, but I think it's the right one.
She was very good girl today through the whole ordeal, despite having nothing to eat or drink until after waking up from her anasthesia. She had to go to a dermatologist at 10 to look at the hemangioma, then fell asleep for 45 minutes on the way to the clinic, and then her noon procedure turned into a 2 PM procedure again. Then she had a 3 PM appointment with Dr. Loh, and then the workers were on strike at the hospital cafeteria, so Keri drove her home before giving her a proper meal. She made up for it with a big dinner of tortellini, then had a 9 PM snack of bread, cheese and avocado. She ate the avocado with a spoon, and was dipping everything in a bowl of olive oil.
Tomorrow we go to meet with the radiation therapists. Not really looking forward to that. We've had trouble making the decision to do the radiation. Keri and I both are sick about it, since many of the effects I listed yesterday are due to the radiation therapy. But after digesting all the information we could, the evidence seems to indicate the total body irradation may be somewhat better than the alternative, a drug called busulfan, at preventing relapse. The side effects of radiation are horrible, but the effects of busulfan are pretty bad too, and they don't have as much data about the long-term effects. It was a very hard decision, and we had to go against our instinct a little bit, but I think it's the right one.
posted by Arne Olson @ 11:26 PM
1 Comments:
At 11:35 AM PDT,
Anonymous said…
Arne & Keri,
We follow Mina Brigitta's reports daily and pray for her many times daily. You have had to make some heart-wrenching decisions. I just want to encourage you by saying that our son, Charlie, had 33 radiation treatments and tolerated them very well. You have to understand that the doctors always have to give you the worst-case scenario. That doesn't mean it's going to happen. Know that you are all in our thoughts and prayers.
Faye
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