Chemotherapy

Adelaine has chemotherapy injected into her port implant, she also has it injected into her spine, legs and she takes chemo orally at home.

Adelaine’s overall 2 ½ year treatment is already mapped out and changes every few weeks. She takes an array of chemotherapy which targets the leukemic cells at different angles. She usually goes into the clinic about once a week for treatments and takes chemo orally twice a day.

The plan is to kill the bad cells without killing the child, a real balancing act. Adelaine goes in regularly to have her blood levels checked. I must say that according to her blood levels, she is doing really great despite this attack. Her ANC, which is a measure of her overall immune system, needs to be at least 500. When she was first diagnosed she was at 120. Since then her levels have gone higher and higher. Now they range in the 4000’s!!

Because chemotherapy causes her to be immune compromised, Adelaine takes antibiotics three days a week. This is to help prevent her from catching something that a person with a normal immune system could fight off on their own. We have to be so careful with her as any type of illness is potentially life threatening.

Chemo also causes other negative side effects such as, hair loss, nausea, tiredness and fatigue, mouth sores and dry mouth, just to name a few. She takes medicines to help fight some of these negative effects.

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