First, a shout out to my sister-in-law, Denice, who missed Colby's (her son's) birthday on Monday to be the shuttle service and personal nurse/play buddy for Austin. We love you Denice.
I thought some of you might appreciate a medical update on AJ. The chemo drugs AJ took last week all did their jobs. That is, they emptied out his marrow to a large extent and wiped out his immune system so as to not fight off Austin's marrow. AJ literally has close to zero white blood cells right now. He will continue to lack an immune system until Austin's marrow finds its way into AJ's bones and begins making new white blood cells. The Doctors said that usually takes 14-18 days.
Yesterday, AJ had a dose of Methotrexate. He'll have this drug four times, days +1, +3, +6 and +11. Methotrexate is another type of chemo drug that namely kills off rapidly multiplying T-Cells. T-Cells are "programmable" white blood cells. Each T-Cell carries around programing to fight off different foreign invaders. (For example when we get a flu vaccine, we are programming certain T-Cells to recognize the virus as foreign). When a T-Cell finds a foreign cell it is programed to fend off, it begins to rapidly multiply.
Right now AJ has some of Austin's T-Cells in his body. We don't want the T-Cells that are programmed to fight off AJ's tissues (and causing what is called Graft vs Host Disease). So the Methotrexate is to kill off the T-Cells that have become activated.
-Greg
2 comments:
Greg and Cindy,
Thanks for keeping us updated on what is going on. We really appreciate the time you are taking to do this.
Sent with lots of love your way,
Tatum
AJ
We are all thinking of you during this tough time. Our prayers are with your entire family.
Michele and the entire Arico family
Post a Comment