Round Two Chemo is Officially Done!

This morning at 1:20am Kai received his last chemo drug and we are now officially complete with round two chemotherapy.

During round one, we found out that there were signs that Kai was responding to the treatments very well.  After only a few days of chemo his Leukemia cells had diminished greatly and the cocktail of four different drugs was working.  This was great news, but it was early on and we were still 3-4 weeks away from doing a bone marrow test to see if the origin of the Leukemia was cancer free.

The bone marrow biopsy happens 3 weeks after the last day of chemo so we were pretty nervous about things…ok terribly nervous to be exact.  When the bone marrow initial results came back the day after, all was looking clear.  But there was one more test that they do by sending the marrow to the United States to have more in-depth testing done.  Three days later we had a visit from our doctor and and they had a smile on their face.

“Kai has no detectable Leukemia in his blood or in his bone marrow!”

WOW…

They refer to Kai now being in remission and we are now proceeding with the four rounds of chemotherapy on the “low risk” arm of the protocol.  This means that Kai gets very similar chemo drugs as the first round and is not being considered for bone marrow transplant at this particular time (YAY!).

With round two just finishing today, we are in the limbo period between treatments where Kai’s immune system will go back down to zero as the chemo does it’s work.  We start round three once his blood counts come back up to a certain level.  Basically, as soon as he gets back to “normal” levels in his blood, we hit him again and take them all back down to zero.

Two more rounds to go…

Kai is feeling pretty good at the moment.  His appetite is hit or miss, but that is just part of the side effects of the drugs.  He’s playful and happy for the most part, but tired a lot of the time.  He just started sitting up on his own from a lay down position which is AWESOME to see!  This, of course, brings a whole new set of challenges for us with his central line and NG tube in  his nose.  He is constantly getting tangled up!

Alicia and I are doing well and couldn’t be more happy with the progress so far.  We still have a long way to go because each time Kai’s immune system and blood counts will take longer to recover that the last.  Kai is doing well, he’s happy, and he’s back to his old self which makes us feel a lot better.

We also moved to a new room last week which means we have a view of the outside world.  Previously our room was looking into an inside playroom.  We’re here for the long haul, so we snagged a better room as soon as one came available.

So, until next update that’s about all for now!

Thanks for all the support and comments that you have been leaving.  We love to hear your words 🙂