Day 32 is Tuesday June 30th. The "big day", the end of the glorious hospital-free vacation interlude. Also it's the end of the "first phase" of chemo. Nadine gets a bone marrow biopsy to see if she looks in remission. The biopsy will determine the "minimal residual disease" (MRD) level, which is the comparison of number or concentration of leukemia cells remaining in her bone marrow compared to the the number or concentration of leukemia cells found in the marrow when she was first admitted to the hospital. It's a seriously important figure.
If Nadine's immediate levels suggest remission, she'll be immediately admitted to the hospital and given another enormously powerful round of chemo -- she'll be "in" for perhaps 4 to 6 days, but it will be a very intense round of chemo in her vein and in spinal cord. Doxyrubicin and dexrazoxane and methatrexate, the works, plus her usual vincristine. Nasty nasty nasty in the service of healthy.
She looks and acts pretty normal and has lots of energy, and her blood counts are up around normal, after what is called "zero-ing out" that happened perhaps 2 weeks ago. She had serious malaise before. The nest round of chemo is expected to drop her "counts" again about a week from tomorrow. There will be many chemo cycles over her 2-year treatment period -- chemo administered, blood counts dropped, time allowed for the blood counts to rise, then chemo again.
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I hate to think of her hurting again. But f left untreated at this stage, nobody is cured!
I cling to that knowledge and dig in.
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