Partial Remission

Remission. Its something I just breathe in and out, over and over. Of course, it's partial remission and we've yet to get her MRD (see definition below), we should have that by Wednesday. Mostly her remission means that her cancer is reacting to the chemo which is what we wanted to see. Especially because she's Ph(+), her remission is a great sign. 

Next we switch up the medicines. She gets a few days off chemo for good behavior. Friday we start new meds that will have the opposite effects of her meds right now. Her steroids have caused her to be amazingly hungry. Now they will make her extremely nauseous, with vomiting. We're to expect that to be her new normal for one month. She'll lose all the weight she put on, and probably then some. And instead of loving food, she'll probably become extremely picky and refuse most food outright. The chemo will also likely finish off what's left of her peach fuzz hair.

On Monday she'll be getting a port, which we've nicknamed "the bumble bee," because it looks like it has yellow wings and a stinger. This will replace her picc line, which is great, as her picc is already causing some issues. She'll be able to bathe, swim and keep her arm free so we're pretty excited. Actually, I'm pretty excited. She's really worried about it. 

Thank you all again for your prayers and love and cheers for Grace. We value your friendship and support more than you'll know.

Minimal residual disease (MRD) is the name given to small numbers of leukaemic cells that remain in the patient during treatment, or after treatment when the patient is inremission (no symptoms or signs of disease). It is the major cause of relapse in cancer and leukaemia. Up until a decade ago,^[when?] none of the tests used to assess or detect cancer were sensitive enough to detect MRD. Now, however, very sensitive molecular biology tests are available – based on DNA, RNA or proteins – and these can measure minute levels of cancer cells in tissue samples, sometimes as low as one cancer cell in a million normal cells.

In cancer treatment, particularly leukaemia, MRD testing has several important roles: determining whether treatment has eradicated the cancer or whether traces remain, comparing the efficacy of different treatments, monitoring patient remission status and recurrence of the leukaemia or cancer and choosing the treatment that will best meet those needs (personalization of treatment).