Liam, phase 2

This kid makes bald look good!!


Well, I guess its time for an update. The truth is, I don't like blogging about all this. I kind of like it to happen, and go away and move on with our life. I'm trying to live in the moment, but I'm also anxious to get this year over with. But I know everyone wants to know what's going on, and its easy to write about the good stuff, so here's an overdue update.


First, a quick and watered down science lesson: We keep talking about Liam's "counts." Leukemia is a cancer of the blood, specifically it is a mutated white blood cell. So throughout treatment the doctors use blood samples to measure how well he is doing. When we first went to the doctor Liam's platelet count was extremely low, hence the petechiae (the red dots all over his chest that clued us in that something was wrong). Platelets are a clotting agent.  Platelet count should be between 150,000 - 400,000.  When we took Liam to the doctor the first day his platelet count was 16,000.  He went straight to the hospital for a platelet transfusion and admittance for his cancer treatment within hours of finding this out.

Liam finished his chemo treatments for the first phase two weeks ago. He should have started phase 2 last week, but his counts hadn't come up enough to start. (Throughout each phase Liam's blood counts go up and down. They count his WBC [total white blood cells], hematocrit [percentage of red blood cells], platelets [the clotting agents] and his ANC [absolute neutrophil count - these are the main infection fighting cells].  Since the chemo is targeting the cancer in his blood all of these numbers go down.  He has had a few packed red blood cell transfusions, and a few platelet transfusions.  Hematocrit and ANC are the numbers we mostly worry about.  ANC because it lets us know how strong (or usually how weak) his immune function is.  A normal ANC is between 1.5 (1500) and I think 9 (9000).  The first whole month Liam's was 0.0.  This phase it hovers around .4 when he is low and 1.4.  We were amazed and thrilled when it spiked up to 6800 (6.8)  when he had 2 weeks reprieve of chemo. That was just before Thanksgiving when my brother and his family got to come and visit.  Great timing.  it stayed up above 1.5 for a few weeks.  It was wonderful.

Hope that explains a little.