Cancer Sucks

by Jana

A few of the nurses here at Primary Children's Hospital have "Cancer Sucks" stickers on their water bottles. Well, today I woke up thinking I should find out where to buy one for my water bottle.

It has almost been a month since Oliver checked into PCH to start his first round of post-relapse

chemo with the hopes of kicking him back into remission so he could get a bone marrow transplant ("BMT"). The plan was for him to be able to go home about now for a week, come back for another month for a second chemo round, go home a week, and then come back again to start the two month-ish long BMT in-patient process.

But, as discussed last week, because Oliver's leukemia did not respond to the front-line AML relapse chemo protocol, the plan has changed. The plan is still to get him back into remission so he can get a BMT. But, now the uphill battle has become significantly more steep, and it was pretty daunting to begin with.

While there are some second, third, and even fourth-line treatment options, none of them are particularly good, let alone great. There is a clinical trial for a chemo drug with some limited promise of achieving remission that targets leukemia cells with the CD33 genetic marker. Oliver has that genetic marker, so is able to enroll in the study and get that chemo for his second round of treatment, which will begin shortly. Should that fail to put him in remission, he will be in uncharted, or barely charted territory, in terms of treatment options.

So, yes, cancer really does suck. But, we believe God really is great. So, we will keep fasting and praying for Oliver's leukemia to go into remission and we will not lose hope or faith.

Oliver reading a book that he received from his cousins in Minnesota.