We got good news this morning! Léo’s blood counts are back up and we can keep moving forward: what a relief! His ANC is 800 and the rest of his counts are great: platelets and red cells, no need for transfusion and/or bone marrow biopsy. It seems like our little one keeps making good healthy cells. GO, Loulou!!! 🙂

Tomorrow we will be starting the last 2 weeks of “consolidation”. We know that Léo went through it smoothly the first time, so we hope that he will feel just as good this second time around!

And best of all, the counts will keep climbing up, so we can enjoy sunny California for a good 10 days! We already took advantage of it this morning, and of course Léo LOVED it!

We are still waiting for Leo’s blood counts to go up, which is making us a little nervous; the team is giving him one more week off chemo. Apparently it can take up to 3 weeks for the little ones to recover after this last month of treatment, but fast recovery is what they aim for. He got hit pretty hard during his last round of treatment!

Hopefully by next Monday, he will be ready (they want his ANC to be at least 750) and we won’t have to perform a bone marrow biopsy on Tuesday to understand what is keeping him for growing his cells at a faster pace. We are thinking that he fought against a little cold, which might be the reason why he got stuck at 300 between last Thursday and yesterday.

Well, let’s keep our fingers crossed and, as always, hope for the best! In the meantime, still no outside activities to be safe: it seems long, but still no complaints from our little one!

Yesterday we found out that Léo’s ANC was… zero!! Meaning that his immune system is completely down and we have to keep him inside again for a few more days. At least we are not at the hospital and he hasn’t broken a fever yet; let’s keep our fingers crossed! We are obviously all being very cautious and keep our good washing hands habits. Charlotte is being so sweet and cooperative. Léo also hasn’t lost his energy and/or appetite, which is very encouraging.

The team is waiting for his ANC to be back up above 750 to continue his chemo and finish off the last 2 weeks of “consolidation”. That may take a few days; we will check on Thursday where he is at and see if he would be allowed to go out over the weekend. That would be very welcome and we certainly would take advantage of it, as pleasant and sunny California weather is finally back!

Léo still doesn’t complain about being kept inside; he keeps himself busy at home and gets a lot of attention! All together, it’s all good! 🙂

Léo spent the last few days at home without any fuss, even if the weather out was delightful. I guess children simply follow the flow! He was a bit tired Thursday and Friday; he even had a slight runny nose, but not too bad. He was very active and playful today. We took both of them to Raouf’s and Mary-Kay’s; we stayed inside, as we still have to be careful until we hear more about his ANC status on Tuesday. They had a blast, played and laughed a lot! 🙂

Tomorrow we will be decorating and hiding the eggs inside the house and a friend of Charlotte, Melody, will be joining us in the fun!

Happy Easter to you all!  Here are some pictures.

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This morning was quite an ordeal! First of all everyone seemed overwhelmed at clinic, which was really frustrating as no one had the time to answer my questions straight! There were so many children who needed to be seen or have a procedure done and they all  came, like we did, at 8am! It’s amazing to realize how many of them have cancer, from babies to teenagers… leukemia, neuroblastoma, brain cancer, all sorts of stuff we don’t want to hear too much about! Léo looks great compared to some of these kids…

Since Léo didn’t have anything to eat since 9pm last night (like every Monday night) I was still hoping that he would be among the first ones to be sent upstairs for his LP procedure. But this time, his blood counts were low: his ANC dropped from the encouraging 2200 last Thursday to… 600, meaning that the red flag is now on and we have to keep him home and watch him closely for fever! This was predictable (and the doctors are really happy that he is responding so well to his treatments!) but, still, yet again we have to adjust and hope for the best! We were warned that the road ahead of us would be bumpy, and it is!!!

Anyway, before the procedure, he had to receive a platelet transfusion, which delayed us quite a bit: by the time he was ready to go upstairs it was 11:30 am and he still didn’t have anything in his belly… not even fluids, as the doctors were so overwhelmed they forgot to give some to him!!! I was beside myself… but Léo, as always, did pretty well, even if he was regularly asking (sometimes screaming!) for an apple, polenta or tofu!! 😉

It seems like this second part of consolidation won’t be as easy as the first 2 weeks, but we took advantage of this break. It also feels good to see that his body is creating new cells so beautifully… too bad the chemo has to destroy pretty much all of them!! Still it’s encouraging! And his hair looks like it’s growing back… 🙂