Today Katie began her second round of the new chemo combination this is three weeks later than planned due to her counts being too low, platelets and neutrophils. The first round went very smoothly, week one was oral tablets followed by a one hour infusion given an hour later. The tablets had to be taken on an empty stomach as it is known that they take one hour to be absorbed into the blood stream if the stomach is empty then when the infusion is given an hour later the two chemo drugs will meet and work in combination to hopefully attack the tumour. This meant that Katie had to take six tablets with water, although we were allowed to hide each tablet in a little bit of yoghurt, but most days she was happy just to take them with water. The second week was easier as it was just the one hour infusion. Katie would go to hospital each day, have her treatment, quickly change into her school uniform and be back in school for the remaining few hours of the school day. Her dinner ladies would keep her a hot dinner which she would eat in her classroom. She truly is an amazing little girl. The problems started when were told the Friday of her "one week off" that she would be unable to start chemo again on the Monday because she was neutropenic. The following Tuesday evening she was admitted with a temperature and a heavy cold/viral infection, this made her low counts even worse so chemo for the following week was once again cancelled. It was rescheduled to today. She then had to be given more antibiotics for a chest infection but fortunately her counts recovered for it to go ahead. This treatment shouldn't really hit her counts that hard so when they dropped so dramatically I was concerned that it wasn't just the treatment making them drop. However, I was reassured by her Consultant that because of her overall treatment history her bone marrow is just very tired and so the slighest little thing will affect her counts, ie the treatment together with the numerous viral infections. Katie will be scanned again in January to assess whether this treatment has worked or not. So for now Katie is well and we are back on track with her treatment. Today, once again, she left the hospital and headed straight for school, when we left the hospital I asked her did she want to go to school or go home and have a rest. She said "I am a little bit tired but I 'll go to school now and have a sleep when it is home time". Katie you are amazing and I love you so much.
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