As many of you know we were hoping to be finished with chemo by now. But, as you also know, nothing with Cancer goes as planned. We have been a few days to almost 2 weeks behind on every cycle depending on how quickly Caleb’s counts recovered. Each cycle has been getting longer and longer due to his counts struggling to come back up.
We had a count check yesterday and his Hgb was 9.6, his ANC was 1040 and his platelets were 43. Unfortunately his Platelet count is still too low to begin the next round, because they have to be over 50 before we can start again. We were feeling a little down because we are so ready to get this last round over with, but we also weren’t surprised.
We spoke with our doctor at St. Jude who explained his view on things and gave us some comfort. He said the low counts are just a way of Caleb’s body letting us know he isn’t ready for more chemo yet. He has been through a lot of treatment and his bone marrow has been hit really hard. Since we are going to go over 14 days since we should have started this cycle, we are going to make a slight adjustment to this last round of chemo. After you go over 14 days the protocol is to volume reduce the dose. So that means when his counts do meet the criteria to start this last round, he will take a slightly smaller dose of chemo than in the previous rounds. Our doctor is confident this will not compromise the overall effectiveness of his treatment plan. He doesn’t feel this will put him at any greater risk for relapse. He’s been able to receive the full dose of every other cycle so he has had a lot of treatment. After talking with him, James and I feel good about this plan. We still hope that we will be able to start this last round some time next week, and then maybe we can finally predict our trip to St. Jude for post treatment scans.
So, that is the latest on chemo. It’s hard to believe we started treatment with radiation 15 months ago, started chemo just over a year ago, and now we are finally to our LAST ROUND. I am so ready for this. I am so ready to be done with this forever and I know Caleb is too. But as always Caleb is in good sprits and brings smiles wherever he goes. His latest “favorite” thing to do is “bake sugar cookies” with his newest play food set. I love him and I love his imagination! I will give another update when we are finally able to start!
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