2-19-10 – Jordan Update

We got the following email from Amy yesterday – good stuff – but keep praying!!

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Good news…Jordan just finished the second phase, Consolidation, of his intensive 7.5 months of weekly chemo treatment!  We need prayer for his counts to jump back up as they are still too low to start the third phase, Interim Maintenance.  Interim Maintenance is a 56 treatment day cycle, followed by Delayed Intensification, another 56 day cycle.  During the final phase of treatment, Maintenance, Jordan will go to the hospital less frequently, hopefully not have to have his PICC line, and will take a pill form of chemo more frequently.  So…we are counting the days until this intensive treatment is behind us!

We went to our weekly Monday clinic day (left the house at 6am for a scheduled spinal tap and chemo) and found out that his counts had not recovered and we are “on hold” until his ANC (Absolute Neutrophil Count:  a measure of the body’s ability to withstand infection) rises above 750…right now he is at 220.  To give you an idea of how low that is…Cedar just had labs and her ANC was 3,000.  His HGB (hemoglobin was only 8.1-Cedar’s is 14.1), WBC (white blood count was 1.24-Cedar’s is 9.62), PLTE counts (were 250-Cedar’s were 304) are slowly on the rise, but we had to take him to the hospital last Wednesday as we were concerned about his side effects from such a low HGB.  We are so thankful for all the blood and platelets that have been donated!  They are there waiting for him…but it is still a balance for the MD to determine when to give blood/platelets as Jordan’s numbers indicated he needed them but they really look at the volume of side effects he is experiencing to determine whether to transfuse or not.  So it has felt a little like when he was first home from the hospital as his counts have been so low and he hasn’t been himself.  We are so thankful for his ability to push on and take advantage of times to play like a 2 year old!

My Grammy Parsons died on Feb 9th and we had planned to drive up to her funeral after his hospital day this Monday and spend the night in Turlock at Phil’s parent’s house.  His oncologist felt it was not wise to have him away from the hospital with his counts so low.  So Phil stayed home with Jordan and my brother Todd and I drove up with the other kids to my Grammas’ funeral.  Phil often tells people to pray for God’s grace on Jordan and I felt the results of this prayer in this situation.  The kids were really excited to spend the night at Teta’s house (Phil’s mom) and then a few kids were going to go to the funeral the next day with me.  I was not able to go to my Grandfather’s funeral (3 yrs ago today) as I was on hospital bed rest with the kids…so my wonderful husband told me we all needed to go to my Grandma’s funeral.  I did not know how to tell Jordan that he could not go now…even though he was originally going to just stay in Turlock by major hospitals with Phil and not go to the funeral.  I just told the kids that sometimes Jordan gets special treats from going to the hospital and sometimes the other kids get special treats.  I told them I know it is not fair…but that we needed to let Jordan know how proud we are of him for being so brave and fighting the baddies in his blood.  Then Jordan started screaming that he wanted more fish nuggets (obviously he was not really screaming about the nuggets) and I asked if any of the kids wanted to show kindness to Jordan and share their nuggets.  Cedar said “here you go Jordan” and then Jeremiah followed her lead and shared his (Jonah was already done =) ).

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