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Relief - James is still clear

James the superhero

Today we heard from James's paediatrician that she got the final report on his bone marrow test - and he's totally clear! The cells that they saw on the previous test turn out under closer scrutiny to be Haematagones, apparently also known as Haemocytoblasts - basically they're immature cells, but they're not cancerous, so he's officially still 100% in remission! They're also not caused by a virus. What a relief it was to hear that news! We'll have our appointment with the Prof tomorrow where we'll be able to discover for more details, but it was nice not to have to wait till then!

Bone Marrow test yesterday

Getting ready for bone marrow test...

James had his bone marrow test yesterday. He was incredible bouncy just before hand, but got knocked out pretty quickly by the anaesthetic!

Extra Bone Marrow Test for James tomorrow

Picture of James and Charis with Granny and Granddad and the boats he made

Last week, James had a bone marrow biopsy, which he has every three months. The hospital called us last Friday to say that they had seen something funny in his bone marrow, from the biopsy and they would like to do more tests. So, on Tuesday he had tests on him for TB of the Bone Marrow, CMV virus and Glandular Fever. The tests have all come back negative and so the doctors have said that they want to do a bigger bone marrow biopsy than usual on James to see what is going on with him. It is tomorrow morning at 8am. We would love some prayer - for peace and grace and healing. We have been trying not to react too much until we know for sure what is going on.

Carrying on with chemo

After last week's liver troubles there's been a lot of emotional up and down - waiting to hear whether James could still have the Methotrexate, and pondering the consequences of stopping it (with a risk of relapse) or the potential damage to his liver of continuing it.

More liver troubles

Last week James started feeling a bit nauseous around food again, and so we asked them to test his liver condition. (This is after his liver apparently recovering from his two episodes last year). The results showed that his liver is struggling again - this time, only one of the four tests was abnormal, but it was 10 times the normal level. This was apparently a fairly clear indication of drug-related liver problems, and so we were told to not give James his weekly Methotrexate this week and then to test again. Today he was tested and the level that was high has dropped significantly, which seems to strongly indicate that his liver is not handling the Methotrexate.

First day at school

James had a fantastic first day at school today. A bit nervous (the butterflies in his tummy meant he didn't eat much breakfast), but when we went to fetch him he came running out saying "I love school!" It's the honeymoon phase but it's great to start off so well.

Settling and School

It's been a month of refocusing and recovery...

Joys and blows

This last few weeks it's felt as though emotions ranging from joys to griefs have been running hand in hand...

Blood test results for James and Charis

It's been quite a week in the Fraser household, featuring James's liver issues, David going to Joburg for the day on Wednesday and Charis being taken for a precautionary blood test to make sure she doesn't have leukemia!

Liver results

We went to see the gastro-enterologist today as planned to check out why James's liver enzyme levels were high. He said that the most likely reason is that some of the drugs he's on can gradually produce toxicity in the liver over protracted periods of time. This can eventually produce liver scarring etc which is not reversible, but if caught early enough, they can sometimes switch the drugs etc so that it doesn't have a permanent effect.

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