Great News! (updated)

Believe it or not, Ava's blasts were at ZERO this morning! Her ANC continues to be at zero, which the docs say is unusual. Sometimes it can take 5-6 weeks for the ANC to recover, but they say it's usually coming back up by now. Her ANC needs to be at 750 in order to start chemo. A possible explanation is that the chemo in her bone marrow is still working, so we will see.

They plan to do a bone marrow aspirate next week, since this is something they never did in the beginning due to the mass on Ava's gland near her airway. Because her labs reflect what's in the peripheral blood, Ava may still have blasts in her bone marrow that isn't reflected in the peripheral blood where they have been checking. The bone marrow aspirate will tell more.

If there are blasts in the bone marrow, the thought now is to start ALL treatment as planned. If there aren't any blasts, then this may be reason to stick with AML treatment.

ALL treatment/pros & cons:
Pros: shorter therapy (5 days vs. 10 days with AML), and patients who respond well to ALL treatment tend to have a better prognosis.

Con: there is one particular drug that seems to cause an allergic reaction to virtually every person who receives it, so they will have to think of an option to help Ava around this. Pre-medication is not an option. Also, this medication lingers in the body, so even if Ava does well at the hospital, they wouldn't want to send her home because she may still develop a reaction later.

Please pray for God's hand to guide Ava's treatment path.

In the meantime, we continue to celebrate Ava's blasts being at ZERO and the fact that she's looking/doing great and playing and everything. We also rejoice that her platelet transfusion this afternoon went well without any incident. Thank you so much for your prayers!