Chemo continues - Day 5

Chemo - Day 5

Dr. Rossbach came in this morning during his rounds. Jordan expressed that she has a persistent cough, which he says is symptomatic of the Chemo, but that if it doesn’t get better by tomorrow, he’ll order a chest X-ray. Jordan asked him if she’d be able to go home after day 10 even if she still has this cough, thankfully he said yes. She would have been very upset if he would have said no. She is very anxious to get out of the hospital and is focusing on Friday as the day she gets to go home.

He also mentioned that she has a Herpes type virus in her blood that is normally associated with cold sores in the mouth. He says her body is fighting it fine, but since her immune system will be suppressed, he’s going to give her a medication to fight it off.

Mouth sores are common in patients that are undergoing Chemo. Mouth care is essential in preventing the sores from appearing. Some people get mouth sores all over the inside of their mouth and they have to use “magic mouthwash” which has lidicain to ease the pain.

Tonight is Jordan’s last night of 10 hour Chemo for this session. For the next five days she’ll just get the AraC push every twelve hours and tomorrow she gets one new drug which she hasn’t had yet.

This new drug, GMTZ, is a fairly strong poison that attacks the cells with Leukemia. Dr. Rossbach used to work with the doctors that invented this drug and he says that one dose if plenty. They used to give patients about 18 mg of it and now they only give them 2-3 mgs.

Dr. Rossbach described it by saying that Leukemia cells have this outward structure, like a nose on a face. This drug GMTZ, attaches specifically to cells with this “nose” structure. Unfortunately, some patients have a similar cell structure on the cells of their liver and those cells also get attacked, even those they are not Leukemia cells.

Since they now give a much smaller dose of the drug, they don’t really see patients having liver problems any longer. Jordan should be fine and can expect not to have any side effects from this dose.

In reviewing her protocol today, I noticed that the next cycle of Chemo is only an 8 day session instead of 10 days.

Jordan will finish up this 10 day cycle on Thursday and should be able to go home on Friday. Friday will be day 11 and she’ll have to return on day 29 which is March 7, 2006. If she only stays in the hospital for the 8 days of treatment, she should be able to go home on March 15. At this point, we don’t know what day the third cycle will start.