Leukemia - How is Jemma? - Day 127

All of you living in Germany know that we have had beautiful weather this week. It has been in the 70's every afternoon and we have enjoyed it. Grandma has been playing outdoors with the kids......

and taking them on walks.

They picked some apples and made applesauce. The kids are having fun spending time with Grandma and my husband and I are loving all her help cooking and cleaning.

The results from Jemma's blood check on Friday were very good. This phase of treatment is not quite as hard on the blood as other phases. Instead it is hard on the digestive system. If she gets an infection, it is more likely to come from internal causes. Eating foods such as hard, toasted bread that could cause mouth sores, or not consuming enough fiber and becoming constipated could cause complications.

The longer the methotrexate stays in her system, the more likely she is to experience these side effects. Therefore, when we were in the hospital, her blood was tested several times to ensure the level was dropping. It was! The doctor said he had never seen it drop in any other patients as rapidly as it did in Jemma. His theory was that going pee every hour in the hospital was working.

In addition to all this, her hair seems to be growing back. It's still too short to tell if it's straight or curly and the color, but we look forward to finding out. Jemma says she would like straight hair and she doesn't care what color it is. I told her she didn't get to pick. Her cells get to pick. We expect this hair growth to be temporary, as during the next phases of treatment Phase 2A and 2B, she will receive medications similar to what she received at the beginning.

We return to the hospital again this week on Wednesday for her second round of methotrexate.