Happy Mother's Day! I had the morning away from hospital to relax with Griffin (who designed me the most wonderful card. I love it!). When I walked back into room 14 , I was greeted by a wonderful card made by Pete (he was very proud of ...himself), and a head shake from Colin.
I instantly knew that it was the worst news, without even having to look at Pete's blood print out. Pete has blasts today of 0.23, so he has relapsed in his bone marrow.
My first impulse was to email Dr Fab for help. But he is most likely flying back from Germany, where he was at a conference. I sent him a quick, desperate email anyway.
We did get to talk to another Oncologist. The goal for today is pain relief for Pete. The leg pain is caused by the blasts building up pressure in the long bones in his legs. So he will be on regular Pamol, tramadol, and on a long acting oral morphine (getting him to swallow that capsule whole, is a story in itself).
I asked if we could come home, and that was agreed on. They emphasized that we can go back in at any time if we are worried. Our room will be kept open for us. So we are now home.
Tomorrow Pete will have a platelet transfusion in the morning, and in the afternoon a BMA (bone marrow aspirate) and hopefully his Lumbar Puncture of Depocyte too. The BMA will show the percentage of blasts in there, but we can presume that it's 90+ %. It will give us some idea of how quickly things are moving and how much time we have to figure out what to do.
We can't do anything chemo-wise before Tuesday. I am worrying about the Tuesday meeting already. As I don't know what kind of options they are going to offer us. There may well be little they will offer. But I am hoping with all my heart that there will be a plan that we can all agree on. And for chemo that will help, and not badly hurt Pete.
