Seattle Cancer Care Alliance - A New Beginning

Yesterday was Connie's first full day at UW Medical Center (all inpatient treatment for the Cancer Care Alliance happens at UW). We had the chance to meet with a couple different doctors that discussed their recommendations for Connie's treatment. Here is what we know at this point.

They would like to start Connie on a clinical trial they call GCLAC. It is two different types of chemo drugs (Cytarabine and Clofarabine) which would be followed by what they call "magic cells" (I'll explain more about those later). At this point they are not sure when they will start the chemo. Connie has been running fevers at night which they think may be a result of a fungal infection she has in her lungs. This is very common in patients that have received chemo. One more test will be run today (a broncoscopy) to try to narrow down the specific fungus. If they were to start the chemo and not figure out what was going on with the lungs it could make the lung situation worse, which would not be good, so we wait.

Once they are able to start the chemo she will have 5 days of chemo for an hour or two a day, and then on day 6 she will get the "magic cells" and potentially, if everything goes well, there is a chance that Connie may be able to go home 7 to 8 days after treatment starts. It will be key that she does not run a fever and has no complications during treatment. So keep your fingers crossed, and say your prayers that everything goes well and she can go home for a few days. Once again as it was the last time, day 14 will be the big day. On or around day 14 she will get a bone marrow biopsy and we will find out what her counts are at. Of course zero leukemic cells is the goal.

With the latest move down to SCCA and the other two treatments not being successful it is looking like she will be needing a bone marrow transplant once they get her into remission. Her siblings will be tested and if there is no match there, then they will look at the bone marrow donor registry for a match. At this point there is no need for others to get tested, but if there is we will certainly let you know.

So now onto the "magic cells". When we were told she would be getting "magic cells" we thought, ok, what are these magic cell things? As it was explained to me. We have something called hematopaietic stem cells (HSC) and all of the blood cells in our body stem from these. They go through a variety of phases but then eventually end up as white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. By using cord blood they were able to reproduce what they call short term repopulating cells (STRC), this is the stage before the cells turn into white, red, platelets, etc. What the "magic cells" do is help bone marrow recover faster and blood cells to produce faster. I attached a diagram that the doctor drew for us so you can get an idea of the progression of a stem cell.

We are currently waiting for the doctor to come in today to see what his thoughts are on the lung infection and when we think she may be starting chemo. Once we know more you will know.

If you would like to send anything to Connie please send it to the house and Ron will bring it down to her. If you need their address please drop me an e-mail and I can send it to you. Since we don't know at this point how long she will be in the hospital we don't want things to get sent her and not receive them. As for visitors, at this point she is pretty wiped out, and we don't what to risk her catching anything, so visitors are still very limited. If and when this changes we will let you know.

I know Connie and Ron thank you for all your love and support, please continue to keep them in your prayers.