Welcome to Peter's CaringBridge website.
Peter has Relapsed Leukaemia (ALL). He also has Down Syndrome and is a very rascally kid. He is 9 years old, and loves school and being naughty.
Understanding Blood counts
Haemoglobin (normal range 109-144) Transfuse under 80
Total White Cells (normal range 4.6-13.4)
Neutrophils (normal range 1.4-9.2) Neutropaenic is under 0.5 i.e. no functioning immune system
Platelets (normal range 150-400) Transfuse under 10
Peter was diagnosed with Leukaemia (ALL) on 18 April 07, aged 3.5.
Peter finished chemo and went OT (off Treatment), on the 20th of August 2010, aged 7. To see the Caring Bridge site of his first treatment, see
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/peterpirie (/visit/peterpirie)
We had a huge End of Treatment party to celebrate. Hiring a heated school pool, and organising a clown, and inviting everyone. We were ecstatic to have the whole chemo journey behind us.
Pete's first blood test OT, which was after 2 weeks, was awesome. Everything leapt up to pretty much normal values. But every subsequent blood test was worrying to us, as some of his counts slowly dropped. It was particuarly noticable in his platelets. His lymphocytes were also very slow to recover. We changed from monthly to fortnightly bloodtests. At the 5.5 month OT mark, Pete's platelets had dropped to 108, and metamyelocytes were spotted in his blood.
Our Oncologist, Nyree, was worried as well, when I spoke to her on a thursday. She booked Pete in for a Bone Marrow Aspirate on monday the 7th of Feb, 2011. Not much sleep was done over that weekend.....
