Don't Panic

Logan has had a funky blood test result that concerned his doctors and prompted further tests.  He has had some blasts in his blood that were unusual.  The blasts are immature white blood cells that should have stayed in his bones to mature and become something... like a neutrophil... to fight infections.  Sometimes, when a person is recovering from chemo, their body will spit out white blood cells before they are done maturing.  I think of it as the body going into a panic attack and trying to hurry the blood making process along.  The blasts are lazy white blood cells, just taking up space and not doing anything.  Because Logan had blasts in his blood, and no other white blood cells to speak of, the doctors had them do a stain test and discovered that some of the blasts were suspicious.  It is possible that the latest round of chemo did not get all of the leukemia.  

Logan can still do the bone marrow transplant if he has 5% or less leukemic cells in his body.  After his first round he still had 11% leukemic cells, ergo the second round of chemo.  We won't know what percentage of cancer might still be there until they do a bone marrow biopsy.  

The last couple of days of CBCs were encouraging to the doctors so right now we wait and see.  Once his bones start making some "good blood" he can do the bone marrow biopsy to determine if the leukemic cells are still there.  If the "lazy blood" makes a come back, they will do the bone marrow biopsy early to see what's going on in the bones.