It is Neuroblastoma awareness week! June 12th - 18th
Charlotte is
amazing. Last Thursday, we went to
Charlotte's clinic appointment. Her ANC
counts (Absolute Neutrophil Counts) were low.
Neutrophils are a type of white blood cells that fight against
infections. They did not do any infusion
because any white blood cell transfusions aren't really helpful because the
white blood cells die off so quickly.
Chemo attacks quick growing cells such as hair, nails and white blood
cells, which is why those going through chemo are at higher risk for
sickness. We were told to spend the
weekend at home and limit Charlotte's exposure.
We spent the weekend at home enjoying some time playing with Charlotte
in her pool and introducing her to the live action “Beauty and the Beast.”
On Tuesday we
returned to clinic for Charlotte's next appointment. Charlotte is now too old to have her blood
taken from a heel stick, so on Tuesday they took blood from a vein in her arm
for the first time. She was not a fan
but it did go by a lot quicker, and required a lot less squeezing and
pain. We received good news and some bad
news while at the clinic appointment.
The good news was that Charlotte's counts were back up. Her ANC counts went from about 310 on
Thursday to 1120 on Tuesday. During this
appointment, I was able to talk with her doctor who is a neuroblastoma guru. She is very happy with how Charlotte has been
doing and happy with her counts. When we
talked she mentioned that Charlotte falls in sort of a small middle group. Even though her NMYC gene is not amplified,
because her cancer has spread some her prognosis isn't as good as a standard
intermediate risk cancer patient. However, her prognosis still is not as low as
a high risk cancer patient. This is a
small pool of kiddos that Charlotte falls in.
In years past these kiddos have been treated in multiple of different
ways, high risk, low risk, etc., because this is a small group of kids and they
have tried many different ways, and essentially there isn't a lot of consistent
data of prognosis. This is all
information that in the grand scheme of things we already really knew. We knew that her cancer had spread; we knew
that this wasn't good and we knew that that is why we need to continue to be
proactive about fighting the cancer. Due to all of this information,
Charlotte's doctor wants to do a bone marrow biopsy after round four along with
all her scans. Charlotte will go in on
July 11th for her round four of chemo, which will be a three night hospital
stay. We will go home after the
chemo. The next week Charlotte will have
her MIBG scan and then a couple days later she will have her bone marrow biopsy
along with an MRI and CT scan.
We need your
prayers again starting next week when we go back in for round three. This will be another three night stay in the
hospital. Charlotte loves her nurses and
doctors, and will love to see them again.
"You have been assigned this mountain to show it can be
moved."
#CharlotteStrong
#CharlotteCancerConquerer
I continue to pray
ReplyDeleteThank you so much.
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