Diagnosis & Day 1

My dad wasn't feeling well on and off for a few months. It was getting worse last week, so Kelly made him go to the doctor on Thursday (Go kelly!). His doc took blood work and received the results Friday morning. She said that his white blood cell(WBC) counts were alarmingly high and suspected leukemia, and that my dad had to go to the hospital for tests to confirm. Thirty minutes later they had a bed ready for him and was in the hospital. As it turns out, a lifelong friend of Kelly's sister-in-law is a hematologist at the Foothills hospital and is now my dad's doctor. She was on the ball as soon as they arrived, conducting multiple tests, including the bone marrow test. As Friday evening approached they were prepping his body for chemo by doing a bicarbonate flush.

Kelly called me at 330pm eastern time (Friday) to inform me of my Dad's status, and I booked on the next flight out of Hamilton, which had me into Calgary at 930am on Saturday morning. Later that evening, to my surprise, I received a call from my Dad. Not a call he probably ever imagined making, nor was it a call I ever wanted to receive. He informed me that they confirmed the diagnosis... we are battling Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

Saturday was Day 1.

He will be receiving chemo meds for 7 days, 24 hrs a day via this tube they have inserted on the right side of his chest. There about 3-4 different tubes from the IV stand that all meet up, and empyty into the central tube that was inserted just above his nipple; this goes up towards the collar bone, and then U-turns down towards his heart, where it empties into an artery that feed directly into his heart. As leukemia is a cancer of the blood cells, this entry is the most efficient way for the drugs to get distributed to the rest of the body. (The nurses also use this entry to administer other non chemotherapeutic drugs such as anti-nausea, anti-biotics). For the first 3 days, he received an injection of a different (more potent) chemo med in the morning, but otherwise its a drip that goes into him constantly. After the 7 days, he will be off the chemotherapeutic agents and the goal to make healthy blood cells begins! He will be in the hospital for another 15-20 days, where he will be receiving platelets and blood transfusions, which will hopefully help with the healthy cell replication. On day 25, they will re-test his bone marrow to determine how effective the chemo was and if he is in remission (THATS THE GOAL!). The doctor said what will likely happen is at that point, she will give him 2 weeks 'off' in order to relax and basically mentally build himself up again... and then we will go for round 2 of chemo.

Currently we are waiting for the results of the bone marrow sample. Those results will offer a definitive diagnosis and give us a prognosis. Acute Myeloid Leukemia has a few subgroups, which are only determined through the bone marrow test, which tells the doctors the genetics of his specific disease. This result will also determine if he needs a bone marrow transplant. As it stands, my dad is an "intermittent" patient, which means, he is being treated with chemo, but may need bone marrow if the chemo does not take effect like we hope. His siblings have the best chance to match him, so I told my Grandma that I'm glad she had 4 kids. What the doctor is looking for is a 10/10 match (which someone of the same parents would likely have). I am only a 5/10 match for him, so they likely wont test me. Jer is going into this with a healthy heart, liver, kidney.. basically healthy body. He had a physical in September, and was of perfect health. Hopefully that means we caught it early.