Back to Sports and School

Last week Thursday Saskia had to have her bloods checked and it showed that there was not much substance to it. A blood and platelet transfusion was organised for Friday 25 October, but she developed a fever on the Thursday evening, so back to hospital it was. The usual procedure is that you need to be fever-free for 48 hours and on antibiotics for at least an additional 24 hours. Luckily we managed to bring the fever down quite quickly and were able to go home on Saturday afternoon with a bag full of drugs.
The real issue with the chemo treatment is not that you feel very sick during the actual administering, but the ability to fight any infection is reduced to nearly nothing in the 10-14 days following the treatment.
To have a fever does not sound as bad, but for persons being treated for cancer, it is actually pretty bad news and if not treated immediately can potentially have a deadly result.  Healthy persons get infected all the time without the person actually knowing it. The body's immune system is usually taking care of all that without noticeable signs. But when your body has received a large amount of poison, the ability for the body to make healthy blood (through the bone-marrow) is next to nothing. This means that any infection, no matter how small, cannot be fought, which causes a fever and back to hospital for treatment it is.
But this week was an awesome week for Saskia. Yesterday (Wednesday) she managed to go a whole day to school and did one-and-a-half hours of calisthenics. She felt absolutely great. Today she is back in hospital for some further blood checks, but it seems that her body has produced the healthy blood stuff, so we do not believe that there is any need for additional transfusions.
Tonight we'll all dress-up for trick-or-treating and I am sure Saskia and her siblings will have a ball of a time.
Next week wednesday she will have a PET scan (which was postponed last time), followed by a 5-day intensive chemo treatment. With this treatment, she has to stay in hospital as the chemo need to be administered with 24hrs per day of liquids as well.
Please do keep Saskia and us in your prayers.