finally

Apologies for this being much later than it should have been...

Well, Adam has now officially begun his third round/fourth month of chemotherapy. This one is called "Escalating Capizzi", named after a prominent researcher who did a lot of work developing this particular protocol to treat ALL. It will run for the next 8/9 weeks, depending on how Adam does, and if he needs a break at all it will take longer. With the completion of this block of treatment we will be over the midway point, the end of the intensive phase of treatment finally in sight. However, they don't call him "escalating" Capizzi for nothing.

This block is based around a drug that they give in increasing doses until, well, until the person can't take any more, i.e. until the side effects are so bad they couldn't handle any more. I don't know about you, but I can't think of anything that sounds worse, though the reality might not be as clearly awful as it sounds. The drug, if you are inclined to look things up, is called "Methotrexate". Adam has already had several doses intrathecally, which means as a shot into his spinal fluid, basically to prevent the cancer from spreading into his CNS (central nervous system). So far it still hasn't spread which is great.

The initial blood work from Friday said that there are no more Leukaemia cells in Adam's bone marrow, so he is still in remission. Everything looks good to our doctors here, but they have sent Adam's blood off to Glasgow for a special, more thorough test called a "Minimal Residual Disease" test which will tell us in more detail how well he is doing. The results from that should be back by next Friday. If it's anything like last time, it will be a bit of an anticlimax, in that it will just confirm what the docs here have already said.

So we press on, get to know Capizzi and hope and pray for Adam to not have such bad side effects that he suffers and his treatment is hugely delayed. Up to now he's only missed four half days of school, which is much better than I had hoped for. The kids have two weeks off school anyway now, and when they go back it would be great for Adam to join them. Of course, Caleb has a sore throat and all the kids are sneezing, but what else do you expect when it's October in Aberdeen? :)