Round 14 Done

Yesterday Hans completed Round 14 of his Millennium. This is Round 14 of a possible 34. Hans is on a Phase II Clinical Trial on this drug. The way the trial is written, Hans is able to stay on the drug for 2 years. A cycle is one week on the oral med, two weeks off. So - if everything stays on track, you should be able to get 17 rounds into a year. We were delayed a couple of times this year, so we can actually only squeeze 16 Rounds into our first year on this med. I don't know if it is time-limited or round-limited, I'll have to ask. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. We are just feeling fortunate that we've stumbled upon a drug Hans' tumor responds to. When we relapsed for the second time back in December 2009, Dr. Maris had a pretty guarded optimism. He suggested that we may be treating the NB as a 'chronic disease' for Hans. Well, here we are ten months into the drug and things are looking good. For the first time during our last office visit, Dr. Maris indicated that the spot might just clear on this med. I always thought it would/could - but what do I know?

Hans' counts are holding their own. We got counts locally yesterday. His white count is actually quite low with an ANC at 500. His HGB is 11.9 and plts are fine about 250. That low ANC is the culprit for keeping Hans in a homebound school program on this med. But, I do think that Hans is fine with being homeschooled. I sure do miss his opportunity to socialize with the other kids, but ultimately, I just hope he can keep up academically!

That's the scoop for now.

Lara