• Childhood Leukemia... 1.

    From Ardith Hinton@1:2320/100 to Mark Hofmann on Thu Jul 31 22:12:02 2014
    Hi, Mark! Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

    That part hasn't changed, apparently. Her treatment lasted
    for 2 1/2 years... but I was also told it took 3 1/2 years
    for boys.

    Basically the same, but depending on certain test results,
    the treatment times in the Maintenance Phase can be less.


    Ah. I guess there's more flexibility now that the doctors have been using +/- the same protocols for over twenty years. In our day the time frame was quite rigid AFAIK, but since then they've fine-tuned a lot of things. :-)



    [re prednisone]
    He was on the steroid for the first 29 days in a row. In
    addition to all the things you noted, he also was eating
    like crazy.


    Our daughter didn't feel much like eating during the first few weeks ... she survived chiefly on milk, juice, and formula. While I was in hospital with her nothing went to waste, though. Fortunately she would leave enough on her plate to enable me to keep body & soul together until Dallas arrived after work. I understand prednisone does tend to cause food cravings, typically for salty foods &/or carbohydrates. Maybe our daughter's cravings were different. In any case I was surprised... and rather amused... when I found out that some local pizza restaurants cheerfully made deliveries to the hospital. Teenagers are more likely to be there on their own than younger children, of course, and more likely to have independent means by which to pay for such luxuries. :-))



    This then means going to the bathroom like crazy and he
    ended up with a rash that wouldn't heal until he was off
    the steroid.


    Uh... you mean something akin to diaper rash? We had a very similar problem during the third week, in part because of the stool softener which was routinely administered during treatment to keep things moving along. It was a difficult time for us. But I gather the alternatives could be worse... you do *not* want caustic chemicals eroding your child's innards, where you can't see what's going on & where the damage would be a lot more difficult to fix.

    Because prednisone inhibits the immune response, it is often used in the treatment of arthritis & asthma as well as leukemia. The downside in such situations as yours, however, is that it slows the healing of wounds.

    What you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts, or so it is said. Our daughter had a stubborn case of "cradle cap" which disappeared when she lost her hair. Glad to know the rash has cleared up, at any rate.... :-)




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  • From Mark Hofmann@1:2320/100 to Ardith Hinton on Fri Aug 1 14:09:02 2014
    Because prednisone inhibits the immune response, it is often used
    in the treatment of arthritis & asthma as well as leukemia. The downside
    in such situations as yours, however, is that it slows the healing of wounds.
    What you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts, or so it
    is said. Our daughter had a stubborn case of "cradle cap" which
    disappeared when she lost her hair. Glad to know the rash has cleared up, at any rate.... :-)

    We are about to enter the "Delayed Intensification" phase next week. Not going to be fun, but we will be done with the bulk of the treatments in mid November. Greatly looking forward to that.

    There seems to be more treatments on this phase and it also adds meds that he has not had up until this point.

    His counts last week were totally normal, which is very impressive considering the treatment going on.

    - Mark

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