Some CNS Blasts Again
04-09-2009
Jaymun had a diagnostic spinal tap on Monday.
He's feeling fine ...we just do them every few months to monitor the status of his CSF fluid.
They counted zero cells on the slide (good)
...but when they spun the entire sample down, they counted 18 cells, 3 of which were blasts (bad).
According to Dr. Camitta who's been doing this for over fifty years they were leukemic blasts.
This is a very minute amount of blasts (like last Aug/Sep) but still three is more than zero.
This morning we are going down for a head CT just to make sure there aren't chloromas in his head.
His peripheral blood counts were fantastic so at first glance they do not think his marrow is involved.
We have not been doing any sort of regular herbal regimen the past few months,
other than periodic immune stimulators (echinacea, colostrum, etc.). So we will put an NG tube in him again, and spend a couple of weeks resuming the herbal regimen from last Aug/Sep. Then in two weeks
we will do another spinal tap and see if they went away or not.
Ok ...we went down for a head CT this morning. They wanted contrast so he needed a temporary IV which required him getting poked a few times. Poor guy was crying big tears and he kept looking at me and saying "hap, hap, hap" (help). The final insult was the NG tube. The good part was that we stopped at clinic and nurse Bonnie and Kelly got him to laugh.
When we returned home, he jumped out to play with his brothers outside ...and forgot everything (I hope).
Talking future options ...we'll probably know better after next spinal tap in two weeks. For what it's worth now, the bmt doc isn't sure about doing intrathecals because last year he already had ara-c and is resistant to that ...switched to toputecan and it didn't work ...then to methotrexate and it didn't clear it. We're sorta "off the charts". ...still waiting on VNTR (and of course results from head CT this morning) and gonna do another spinal tap in two weeks. This is hopefully just a miniscule amount ...we were fortunate to catch it this early.
