Thursday Clinic Visit - Maintenance Round 16

Today's clinic visit consisted of the following:
1) Port access
2) a blood draw
3) Vincristine (Chemo)

Today, Katie had a blast at clinic. I know, sounds weird, I'm sure...but, two of her little friends were there and they made themselves comfortable playing on the floor with all kinds of toys. All three of them finished up with their chemo about the same time and they were all in tears because they didn't want to leave. The poor kids are so deprived from socialization this time of year that even clinic is fun if there are other kids there to play with! lol It was nice to see her having so much fun there for a change.

We spoke with Dr. Keuker about her end of treatment schedule. This is what I gather...as long as her white blood cell counts stay where they are supposed to and she stays on schedule with her treatments, her last "treatment" clinic visit will be September 30, 2010. She will start her last cycle on that date and finish it out on October 14th. We also asked him about the additional lumbar puncture and bone marrow test. He explained that they do not need to take place on the last day of treatment, but that they could take place any time before the end of her treatments within a reasonable time frame. Her protocol calls for 2 more "scheduled" lumbar punctures, the last one being July 29th. He said that he can do both the lumbar puncture and the bone marrow test on that day and we can be done with both of those things, which was great news to me. The date for port removal surgery is still TBD.

So, as long as she stay on par, which I expect she will, she will take her last pills on October 14th, in Walt Disney World, pending approval of our chosen dates from Make a Wish!!!! I have updated the countdown clock to reflect the October 14th end day :-) What a way to celebrate her last week of pills!!!

This cycle will last 3 weeks and consist of the following:
Vincristine - Day 1 (same dose as previous cycles)
Methotrexate (oral at home chemo) - Days 1, 8 & 15 (same dose as the last cycle)
6-mercapturine (oral at home chemo) - Days 1-14 (same dose as the last cycle)
Dexamethasone (oral at home steroid)- Days 1-5 (same dose as the last cycle)

Her next clinic visit will be in 3 weeks, March 4th.

OH, and in case you were wondering, there are 11 clinic visits, 2 lumbar punctures and 1 bone marrow test left.