Update Day 8, by Lauren

UPDATE DAY 8: GOODMORNING ALL!! For those of you who want to know, today is the day I have the second dose of the special drug! It's called Inotuzumab and what it does is target a specific protein (CD22 protein to be exact) within the leukaemic cell. Obviously more complicated then that but you get my drift. And it's quite anti-climatic, the drug is given intravenously through my PICC (or matrix line as I like to call it) over an hour and voila! So I had one dose last Tuesday, I'll have another dose today and another dose on Day 15. Then Day 22 is when I will go in for a bone marrow biopsy to see if one cycle of this drug has got me into remission (which is technically 3%>leukaemic blasts in my system - I'm hoping 0%). Unfortunately this drug won't cure me though - I still need a transplant. So if one cycle gets me into remission (which I'm twisting and fingers crossing up like a contortionist hoping that's the case) we will wait three weeks and then go into transplant. The reason for the time in between is to give my liver and kidneys a break otherwise I'll end up with worst problems down the track or possibly through transplant itself. If one cycle doesn't get me into full remission Pfizer (the drug company who owns Inotuzumab) has given me a second cycle but the research that has just come out 2 weeks ago about trials in the US shows promising outcomes with just one cycle and my doctor is hoping to keep the second cycle just incase I relapse again during or after transplant, which unfortunately is still a possibility that comes with it all. So here's hoping the one cycle does the trick and if not we have a second to back me up!! As for me and how I'm going - I'm great!

Still on heavy steroids to reduce reactions to the drug but they're slowly on the decrease now that the first dose is done and the second one is about to commence. But I still eat like all the savoury food won't be here tomorrow (Yeeesss especially bacon) and I have a funny resemblance to Moonface from The Magic Faraway Tree or a chipmunk! I can even get 4 double chins now! And because the drug doesn't target all your cells like chemo does my blood counts have been good so I've been feeling well and am growing a nice head of dark hair (I'll lose it again in transplant but at least I have more than my Dad at the moment). And I've been keeping myself busy learning how to crochet beanies with Gram, have 700 something origami cranes (only 300 to go), now have Netflix, getting through my movie list, and got out the inner gamer in me and revisited Pokemon and Sims 3, reading books, trying to win stuff out of puzzle books, online shopping, exercising on the bike and getting people to bring me food...

Can't complain with life at the Royal Adelaide Hotel at the moment. Still not sure about a discharge yet - because I'm the first person in Australia to receive this drug they are loving monitoring me so it might be another week but with an awesome youth cancer room like the one I'm in I'm not complaining. Just gotta sit tight and hopefully everything will fall into place! And also, thank you all for the lovely food and bacon tags and memes and love... Sometimes they make my day and then other times they make me really really hungry haha but it's cool to know you guys can laugh with me on this crazy journey too!! Anyway better go and fuck up some more cancer cells 😜 ‪#‎FUCKLEUKAEMIA‬ ‪#‎FUCKCANCER‬