Electra & AML: Our New Years Eve Tradition

(See all posts related to Electra's ongoing treatment)

So, remember my last post? Where I discussed why it was so important to us to celebrate New Years Eve in style and the plans we had to do so? Well, turns out that was optimistic thinking and our continuing streak of bad luck had other plans in mind. For the second year in a row, Electra started chemotherapy on New Years Eve. Evidently this is now our traditional celebration.

Basically, we'd been given the conditional all-clear to celebrate NYE as we'd planned, as Electra's counts were high enough. The condition, however, was the she come in for one final blood test on Wednesday, December 28th and that this test would be the final decision-maker as to whether she was healthy enough to stay out of the hospital until the new year. And sadly, she was not; specifically, her white cell count had dropped further, which put her at an increased risk of infection. If she were to contract an infection, the course of chemo she'd selected would be impossible: since the chemo would decimate her immune system, any contracted infection would potentially be fatal, and would definitely be a horrible experience. So they would be unable to start the chemo if she were to pick up so much as a nasty cold, and the risk of doing so was too high. So New Years Eve as planned was off, and it was into the hospital the next day.

Of course, that didn't happen either. The hospital was short on beds, so her admission date got bumped back to the 30th (despite the fact that I'd treated us to a nice "last night out" dinner on the 28th, harrumph).  On the 30th, she was admitted back into the haematology ward, and the treatment began. First step was the insert a new Hickman (aka central) line, as hers had been removed when she'd been in remission. Then came the application of GCSF, a growth hormone which in patients such as herself spurs the production of more white cells, better enabling the body to handle the coming onslaught of the chemotherapy. This had the added benefit of taking her out of a neutrapenic state, meaning she felt healthier (for awhile) and the precautions for visiting are lessened.

On the 31st, the chemotherapy began. The course she's now on is called FLAG and has two chemotherapy drug: fludarabine and cytarabine. The latter is given over four hours, the longest single-drug duration she's had to deal with.

The upshot of all this, of course, was another New Years Eve in the hospital. As you can imagine, we were gutted to hear the news, as we'd really been looking forward to a nice, fun, relaxing cottage weekend with close friends, games, drink and sleep. Instead it was sterile environments, crappy hospital food, pain and intense medication.

Still, these sorts of things are, to a certain degree, what you make of them. So we did our best. I brought in a bottle of sparkling wine and a black forest cake and we rang in the new year (two hours early due to fatigue) with bubbly, cake, music and even a little in-room dancing. It might not be what we'd planned, but it was the best we were able to make of it.

And here's to 2012 being a better year, with a proper end-of-year celebration!