Thursday, March 6, 2008

Maintenance Overview

The case manager for the clinic, otherwise known as "Pam", and one of Anya's favorites, gave us an overview of treatment during Maintenance. It will include:
  • a spinal tap with chemo every 3 months
  • a clinic visit for intravenous chemo and preventative antibiotic every month
  • steroids for five days of every month
  • oral chemo everyday
We had mistakenly been under the impression that Maintenance wouldn't include quite so much treatment. But we have again been reassured that this phase is not as intense as it was during Induction, Consolidation, or Delayed Intensification but rather similar to Interim Maintenance. They have said that Anya should be feeling more like herself during this next year and a half. We have also been told that most kids return to school during this time and that their hair begins to grow back. We are praying for a smooth transition to this new line of treatment.

(Previously we had been told that there was a good chance that Anya would be delayed in starting Maintenance next week because her counts have traditionally dropped and recovered late. However on Wednesday her counts were stable so we were told than that there is a good chance that she will start Maintenance on time next week after all. She is scheduled to have blood work on Monday and at that point we'll know something more definite.)

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