AML: Round 4... Road Trip First

On Friday I had may regular appt with my oncologist. I am still in remission. My counts are back in the normal range (hemoglobin is a tad low, but that is normal for someone going through chemo).

The doctor confirmed that I will have 3 more treatments. I go back in on Feb 22nd. At this rate I am hoping to be done with treatments by June.

Unfortunately, the doctor is not going to let me go home after the chemo to wait out my recovery this time. So I will be in for the duration (about 3 weeks). With that in mind we are planning a little family road trip to the Twin Cities this weekend. My parents and sisters's family will be joining us. (6 adults, 5 kids.)

Family time is so important to maintaining my sanity through this whole thing. For me that applies to my extended family as well. I have a close group of aunts, uncles and cousins. I had the Christmas holiday before my last treatment and will be creating my own holidays as needed to make sure I have excuses to get people together.

I get asked often, so I thought I'd recap how my treatments work. The first 2 rounds of induction chemo were to kill the active leukemia cells in my body. Because AML is so aggressive, most people without bone marrow transplant relapse fairly quickly (1-2 years). The following 4 rounds of consolidation chemo are intended to make sure it does not come back. I don't have a related bone marrow donor so we have decided to see if the chemo is enough. Based on what I have been told, there is a 33% chance that chemo alone will be enough to keep the leukemia away. I am optimistic because of my age and my response so far. You can read by earlier post about my chemo\bone marrow decision here.

I'll be writing more regularly since I am headed back for round 4.