Surprisingly, Isabella's white cell count has shot up and she is no longer neutropenic (low white cells, susceptible to infections). This means that her stem cells that we transfused into her 9 days ago are doing their thing and making lots of white cells. Unfortunately, now that the white cells are fighting off all the foreign invaders in her body, she has been feeling extremely bad with lots of pain. The doctors say that this is a normal side effect of a large spike in white cells and that she should start feeling better in a day or two.
As Isabella continues to recover from her final cycle of chemo, we've been planning the next stages of treatment for her. First off, she will have an MRI to see what is left of the tumor. Then, we will be going through radiation therapy in Boston starting in mid-July to blast away any remaining cancer cells. The treatments run once a day for 6 weeks.
Although we wanted to avoid radiation as much as possible, due to the size and infiltration of the original tumor, the chemotherapy was not able to eliminate everything. The Boston radiology folks did review Isabella's history and think that she is a very good candidate for the radiation based on how she's responded to the chemotherapy.
Monday, June 1, 2009
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W O N D E R F U L news ! And if I can share a comment from an oncology nurse "you need to just keep moving FORWARD". Take a nice long shower and sleep well----take care of yourselves so you can take care of your daughter that my husband fondly refers to as "Isa Who" (which I take to be from Grinch cartoon.........that cutie from Who's-Ville. CEAL-
ReplyDeleteThe hope is that the tumor is all gone by the grace of God and that the radition detsroys any remaing bad cells and tumor. Please continue to keep us updated and know that so many people pray for isabella--she will prevail. She has so many routing her on....
ReplyDeleteAnother Anonymous watching little Isabella's progress from afar... prayers to all of you!
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