September Clinic Visit

Anya's spinal tap went much better yesterday than the one she had a couple months ago! It wasn't perfectly smooth, but it was a big improvement and the doctors are confident that they can have the medications regulated for the next one. Praise the Lord!

In general the visit was a good visit. Anya didn't experience as many bad side effects from the pain medication, she recovered quickly and was able to get home by lunchtime. Hooray!

While they were at the clinic, Israel asked the doctors a couple questions. In case you are interested, here are a few of his questions and their answers.

Question: How do you know that Anya has not relapsed since you are not doing bone marrow aspirates anymore?
Answer: When a child relapses, there are several signs that would indicate the leukemia has returned. Anya doesn't have any of these symptoms. One of the first indicators of relapse is when a child's platelet count consistently decreases from month to month. Anya's platelet count fluctuates up and down and up again from one month to the next.

Question: How often after Anya finishes treatment will she have to be tested to see if the leukemia has returned?
Answer: Anya will have to be tested every month for the first year after she finishes treatment, and every two or three months for the next year. After that we'll just look for signs that she is developing properly. For example: Is she is hitting puberty at the appropriate time? Is she is generally happy and healthy and growing?

Question: For several weeks, Anya has been feeling sick more often and is generally more fussy than she usually was the past several months since she started Maintenance. What do think is causing this?
Answer: Methotrexate, one of Anya's chemo medications, can give kids an indigestion-like feeling that they usually don't know how to explain. This discomfort can be further irritated by the other medications she is on. The timing corresponds with when we increased the Methotrexate and Mercaptopurine medications. She needs to take a daily dose of Pepcid-AC.

So we've started the 'daily' Pepcid-AC. Hopefully this will help!