High dosage ARA-C

The past few weeks have been a bit of an emotional roller coaster for our family. Ethan finished his 2nd round of chemo in his relapse. Our hopes were high that he would be in remission, and we would be able to move on to his bone marrow transplant. After the first round, his leukemia cells were down to 1%, so we were hoping the second round would take care of the last remaining cells. We came in for a bone marrow aspirate last week, and anxiously awaited the news. The following day, we got a call from Ethan's doctor. The news was not good. His leukemia cells were now up to 10%.  We were informed that Ethan would need to do the third round of treatment, and that if this round doesn't work, then we would need to do some experimental treatments. It was hard news for our family. The thought of the treatments not working was very frightening as a parent and a sibling. 

We were admitted this morning for chemo treatments. This treatment is supposed to be the hardest of all 3, which I believe. Ethan has done this chemo before, and he had a fever, and a lot of nausea. This time, it will be a high dosage form of that chemo. They said that nausea and fever are very likely. He will be rotating between 3 different anti-nausea med's every 2 hours. They watch closely for mouth sores and bacteria infections. The chemo can be hard on the corneas, so he will likely do eye drops every 4 hours, including the night. As the doctor put it, this is good and bad that it's such a hard chemo. Good because it wipes his cells out (hopefully including the leukemia cells), and bad because it is so hard on the kids. 

Once again, we have felt our Heavenly Father's love for us. Our wonderful home teacher came and gave those who wanted a blessing last night, including Ethan, and there were some amazing promises in those blessings. I know that this is happening for a reason. I know there is much that our family and myself personally are supposed to learn from this. I know that there is something bigger that is supposed to come from this that can't happen any other way. I am so grateful for the gospel and the peace that it brings to my life.