Great Day! Chemo Sessions 5-7

Today was a GREAT day!

Brax started the day with an IT treatment (her 2nd of this type and 5th chemo overall). This was the first time she had to have her port accessed since leaving the hospital and it was a bit sore still, but she handled it like a champ. The cleaning was worse than the needle per Brax.

The IT treatment went very well (she is put to sleep for these) and her Nurse Practitioner Melissa Claar, who we met today and who will be heavily involved throughout this process, performed the procedure. She is great as well. The whole team is great.

After getting back to recovery and in between going up to the clinic for her two IV chemo treatments, Brax was able to get a quick bite. It was now around 1PM and she hadn’t eaten since about 1AM (yea, 1AM – she woke up and needed a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in bed). She was getting “hangry!” Fries, four nuggets and a pineapple mango smoothie later and we were happy and heading up to the clinic for more chemo.

We got up to the clinic and received her schedule for the next 7 weeks. It’s intense but she is doing great and it looks like things slow down a bit after the next 3 weeks.

Now here is where things get REALLY EXCITING. Due the fact that Brax doesn’t have many leukemia cells in her blood (mostly all contained in the bone marrow) we won’t get a real clear picture of progress until her next bone marrow biopsy on February 28. However, because they found leukemia cells in her spinal fluid and are treating that weekly, we are able to get a read on how that is going as the fluid is tested weekly and the results today were AMAZING!!

Below are the CSF (Cerebrospinal Fluid) Cell Count results from last week when she was diagnosed. Healthy individuals will be close to 0 for both WBC & RBC CSF and Brax was 583 and 233 respectively – yuck.

Today, after her 1st treatment from last week, her counts were already down to 14 and 3 respectively!! Nurse Melissa was very happy with the results and we were THRILLED, to say the least. And, in general, her overall CBC (complete blood count) was good with many key areas improving, which shows us that things are working and she’s getting better each day.

Thanks again to everyone for the calls, cards, texts, gifts and prayers. It’s helping all of us through this and please keep the prayers and good vibes coming. Today was a GREAT day and we are looking forward to many more.

Brax now has a week off from treatment to recover. She will go back for labs (and transfusion if needed) next Tuesday and three more treatments on Thursday.