Yesterday's Consolidation 2 Cycle 5B Visit

Waiting for consultation with a doctor

Yesterday Erika had her 5th cycle of consolidation 2. Due to her increase of neuropathy on her hands, feet, and now ankles, doctors have decided to eliminate the chemo called Vincristine from her treatment. Since her past visits of cycle 3, she had been complaining about hip pains. Dexomethasone, a steroid, cause hip bone weakness. This steroid literally eats away the bone. Last week on Wednesday during her Cycle 5a treatment, she had a X-Ray done to see if there are any signs of hip bone abnormalities. The result show everything was fine structurally. Since last Wednesday her hips felt the same and the pain level appeared to have increased from her hips down to her feet. Yesterday they decided to do an MRI on her hips to check the blood flow. The results showed she had many bone infarctions on her left side of her hip. An infarction means the death (necrosis) of a tissue due to lack of oxygen. Doctors don't know whether it was the chemo PEG-Aspariginase (which is the clinical trial medicine) or high dosage of the steroid Dexamethasone, so they eliminated those two as well from her treatment. That is a total of three chemo medicine being held back. To both Erika and I, this is good news since this means she won't be as drugged up and will not have to feel the side effects of them all. Yet, this puts fear into us that since she will not be getting the complete treatment, the cancer cells may have a chance to come back, especially after knowing about another patient who went through the same clinical trial and she recently relapsed.

Erika's marrow from this February

This is a sample of an infarction.

Today Erika will be going in to get her legs and feet examined for any blood clots since this usually occurs when there are an infarction in the hips. Lets hope that her legs and feet check out fine and that the neuropathy and infarction will be reversible so she can continue on with the treatment.

Strolling down to MRI lab