Weekly Labs results and more

Emily had an ANC in the 3000 range, which means she can increase her chemo dose to %75 of normal, per her protocol. All her other levels looked great as well. She's doing wonderfully. It is looking like her surgery to have her port removed will be on the 28th. They are working on scheduling her. There really isn't any other medical news to report.

Above I mentioned her "Protocol" and want to explain a little more about what that means. When you are diagnosed with Cancer they do a lot of tests to determine the best treatment. Many things are taken into account when they make this decision, age, gender, what stage the cancer is in, what organs, other genetic markers I don't even understand also play into the decision. Even for a disease like T-Cell Lymphoma, there are several possible treatment Protocols that can be considered. Once the diagnosis is made, and the staging and other tests come in, the Oncologist chooses the Protocol that has the best chances for the treatment of the patient. So Emily's protocol has a specific number which Oncologists can refer to, for almost any situation that comes up. There is a bit more complexity to this as well. After they decide which protocol you are on, you are either put on an official study or not. For Emily she was not put on an offical study. At first this made me nervous, but when I learned more I was relieved. First of all if you are on an offical study they have to draw twice as much blood each time you have a lab draw. This is because one sample would be sent to the lab, and the other would be sent to the research team running the study. You also have to have more CT Scan and more overall radiation as part of the study. Since Emily isn't offically on it, it is at Dr. Link's discresion if he follows the protocol or not. For example he decided that if her CT scan is clear, not to do a PET Scan, to save Emily from radiation. Emily's Protocol is really old also, which is good because it means its effective, the old addage "if it works, don't fix it" applies. So there is a good guide for us, that is based on many people who have fought this battle before, and won.

We don't have any big plans for the next few days......but who knows what we'll come up with this weekend. This year we are going to get out and do even more than last year. I am working on a ski trip in Feb, a trip to San Diego in March, and a camping trip to Yosemite in June, plus a few other ideas I'm following up on.