Day 22 of Chemotherapy

We went to the hospital today for Olivia's chemotherapy. We met 2 new friends who have the same condition as hers. Interestingly, both kids were 2 year old girls and all three of them were just months apart in age and time of diagnosis. It gave us a picture of where Olivia will be in the coming months. It was nice to be able to make friends with the parents of the kids and learn about how they are coping with this disease. Olivia was not yet comfortable at the oncology center, but seeing the 2 happy girls made us hopeful that our Olivia will be playing with them soon!

I mentioned to the doctor that for the past week, we have noticed Olivia sweat a lot when she sleeps. It is a common side effect of chemo. I cut her hair last week and will most likely cut it again shorter this week. Once in a while Olivia will show me a strand of hair on her fingers and asks me what happened to her hair. I'm thinking that cutting her hair short will help make it an easier transition for when all/majority of her hair falls off. I also think it will be easier to manage the perspiration when she has shorter hair.  I read to her a book about  losing hair during chemo and she likes it.

Olivia's blood counts today made us sooo happy! She is looking pretty good and is where she is expected to be!

Her current blood counts are as follows:

White Blood Count 3.4 (Normal is 5-10; last week was 1.2)

Hemoglobin 8.6 (Normal is 12-14; last week was 9.3) Although it came down, it's not at a level that would require transfusion

Platelets 350,000 (Normal is 150,000-450,000; last week was 81,000) Yay!!!

ANC 2,412 (Normal is at least 1,500; last week was 132) - This was where I was surprised the most! Thank you God!!!

Next week will mark the last week of the Induction phase. The goal of the 4 weeks of Induction is to kill majority of the cancer cells, leaving a favorable 0.01% remaining. The hardest part will be to kill the 0.01% and basically the entire process will span about 2 1/2 to 3 years. Throughout the Induction phase, Olivia had gone through bone marrow aspiration and spinal tap where the doctors run tests to see how she is responding to the chemotherapy. We will be sitting down with our doctors in 2 weeks from now to discuss all the findings. The test results will determine what path to take for her succeeding chemo treatments.