Friday morning we got a call from Dr. Singh with the results of Karlee's day 29 bone marrow aspirate. The goal was to have the blast cells down to 0.1% or 1 blast cell in 1,000 cells. Karlee's results far exceeded that number. They were unable to see any blast cells in her flow cytomery test. This does not imply that there are no blast cells but rather the tests do not allow them to see the cells. They assume that there are still 1 in 100,000 or 1 in 1 million blast cells. Karlee now has met all 3 criteria to move her into the low risk category of the standard risk.
Obviously this is great news, but it does not change the length of treatment. She still has 5 more months of treatment, but this treatment will be altered by the new low risk categorization. We will find out more details about this on our clinic day on Tuesday. She will also have another 2 years of maintenance after the treatment.
This was a busy weekend for us. Friday we had a craft fair to sell slippers at the Beverly Centre. Jennifer did very well selling 6 pairs of slippers. Jennifer has decided to donate $5 per pair of slippers to the Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta. This group does an amazing job of supporting patients and their families through this journey. Please check out their website for more information - www.kidscancercare.ab.ca
Saturday morning we started by going to a blood donor clinic for both Mom and Dad to donate blood. Even though both have been regular donors for a number of years it seems a little more important now that Karlee will be needing transfusions on a regular basis. We would like to encourage anyone who is eligible to donate blood to book and appointment and give blood. They say people are more likely to give blood if they know someone who requires blood on a regular basis.
After giving blood we started the hockey season with Ryley. He has a number of practice sessions prior to the evaluations. This is a great idea so all the kids get a chance to get used to skating again prior to being placed on teams.
Sunday started off with hockey again. Then we were off to Ryley's birthday party at the Deerfoot Inn and Casino. They have a great pool that they let the kids (and parents) play in for an hour and then we went to the dining room to have food, cake and open presents. We had 6 kids and 3 parents in the pool. A great time was had by all. Ryley got a bunch of new Lego and had a great time with his friends. Grandma looked after Karlee while we were at the party. They spent the afternoon colouring and playing.
After the party we went over to Grandma's for Sunday dinner. This week we had a nice treat as Uncle Syd and Aunt Lol from Vancouver joined us for supper. It was great to see them again and spend some time visiting with them. Unfortunately Everett and Oliver had colds so they couldn't join us as Karlee's counts are low right now.
Tomorrow (Monday) morning Mom has to take Karlee to the Rockyview to get some blood taken. They want a CBC (Complete Blood Count) prior to starting treatment on Tuesday. Tuesday morning we are going in for a consultation and to sign the next round of consent forms with Dr. Singh. We should get a lot more details about what the next 5 months will look like in that meeting.
Once again we would like to thank everyone for everything they have done for us.
Love
Ron, Jennifer, Ryley and Karlee
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