Dad’s consolidation course started pretty quickly after his induction course. Here is a brief timeline of major events during this time which encompasses about 6 months. Home after induction chemotherapy — 1 week First consolidation chemotherapy — 6 days in the hospital Home for 6 days Admission for septic shock — 8 days in the hospital Home for 22 days Second consolidation chemotherapy — 6 days in the hospital Home for 8 days Admission for neutropenic fever — 8 days in the hospital Home recovery — 3 months Stem cell transplant delayed due to fatigue and weight los ..read more

Dad’s counts started to recover during the last 8 days of his hospital stay and he did not need any more transfusions. We discovered a small pressure sore above his buttocks and his nausea and bloating started to slowly improve. He was slowly taken off his antibiotics as his counts started to recover. He had a repeat bone marrow biopsy that showed that he was in remission and that he would not have to stay for another immediate round of inpatient chemotherapy. The day we got the news, on HOD 29, was the day that Dad was able to go home for the first time in nearly 1 month. Overview of Week 4 a ..read more

The third week of my Dad’s hospital stay brought with it the return of his biopsy mutation results — resulting in the start of my Dad taking midostaurin due to his FLT mutation — and a fever on HOD 18. During this time, his main complaints were shifting oral pain, rashes on his chest, back, and abdomen, and continued nausea and bloating. He continued to get blood and platelet transfusions, which were slightly more frequent than the second hospital week, and we all eagerly awaited his counts to start recovering, which we were told would happened sometime between days 21 to 28 from the start of ..read more

During the second week of my dad’s hospital stay, he finished his 7+3 chemotherapy and he started to experience some of the symptoms that commonly arise after chemotherapy. He was periodically nauseous, vomited, became tired easily, started to experience some abdominal discomfort and some oral pain. His blood counts continued to drop and he started requiring blood (pRBC) and platelet transfusions to keep his numbers up to prevent hypoxia (low oxygen) and spontaneous bleeding. He had a fever on HOD 9 after which IV antibiotics were started. Overview of Week 2 Overall Graph The first thing to no ..read more

My dad was admitted to the hospital with concern for acute myeloid leukemia towards the end of September 2019. The following were my notes for each day of his hospital stay. The Emergency room staff was very concerned he might have AML but were also worried about the effects of having such a high WBC and its effect on the blood (very high WBC can cause the blood to be thick and sluggish which can lead to organ problems). I will be referring to each day in the hospital as HOD — HOspital Day. I will put a military time to log when I wrote each portion of my notes. Overview of Week 1 Overall Grap ..read more

Induction chemotherapy, for AML, typically involves something called “7+3” which refers to 7 days of continuous cytarabine in addition to 3 days of either idarubicin or daunorubicin. Because of the leukemic blast cells in the body, “7+3” was started for my dad. He had a PICC line placed, which is a sort of large IV that is semi-permanent and is able to deliver the toxic chemo, and then started on the chemotherapy. Here you can see how Dad’s WBC (white count) dropped quickly once chemo was started (HOD refers to HOspital Day). This was done initially with hydroxyurea (HOD 1 and 2) and then wit ..read more

Before his diagnosis in September, Dad had been doing great My dad was nearing 60 but was healthy and well. He was vegetarian, walked regularly, prayed and believed devoutly, and flossed daily. He eschewed the elevator and walked up 5 flights to his desk at work. However, for about 2 months before his diagnosis, he started to realize that walking up the stairs was more tiresome and he found himself somewhat out of breath. He didn’t think much of it and continued to eat healthy and pray frequently. However, it didn’t quite go away. Then, towards the middle of September, Dad got sick with what w ..read more