Everything went well at the neurologist on Friday. The doctor determined it was safe for Jerek to come off of Keppra. He wanted to wean him off, so he has been down to one pill a day this past week and tomorrow morning will be his last dose. He does want to do an EEG some time in December just to make sure there is no activity without the medicine in his system. Since Jerek had a provoked seizure (the leukemia caused the blood clots in his brain, the blood clots caused the seizure), the neurologist told him he had a less than 5% chance of ever having another one. Yay for one less med and one less thing to worry about.
Labs this week have been good. His hemoglobin had dropped a little on Monday but was back up today. The white count and neutrophils have held steady this past week. However, Jerek was on steroids this past week which affect the white count. He had the last dose yesterday so his numbers are fully expected to be down by Monday. At least this is what happened the first week he was on steroids. His platelets weren’t bad today but were lower so we expect these to be trending down also. The next half of this course starts off with chemo 4 days in a row for 2 weeks. With Thanksgiving coming up and with the expectation that his counts will be down by Monday, they have decided to give him the next 2 weeks off. He will still go in for lab checks both weeks but will not get any chemo. They are planning to start the next half of this course on Monday, November 26th. With this start date, he will finish this course the week before Christmas and will hopefully be able to enjoy the holiday. He will then tentatively get Christmas week and the week after off, and will begin the maintenance phase on January 7th. The maintenance phase is a lot less demanding and will allow Jerek to start the road to recovery and feeling normal again. As always, we appreciate the continued prayers.
Labs this week have been good. His hemoglobin had dropped a little on Monday but was back up today. The white count and neutrophils have held steady this past week. However, Jerek was on steroids this past week which affect the white count. He had the last dose yesterday so his numbers are fully expected to be down by Monday. At least this is what happened the first week he was on steroids. His platelets weren’t bad today but were lower so we expect these to be trending down also. The next half of this course starts off with chemo 4 days in a row for 2 weeks. With Thanksgiving coming up and with the expectation that his counts will be down by Monday, they have decided to give him the next 2 weeks off. He will still go in for lab checks both weeks but will not get any chemo. They are planning to start the next half of this course on Monday, November 26th. With this start date, he will finish this course the week before Christmas and will hopefully be able to enjoy the holiday. He will then tentatively get Christmas week and the week after off, and will begin the maintenance phase on January 7th. The maintenance phase is a lot less demanding and will allow Jerek to start the road to recovery and feeling normal again. As always, we appreciate the continued prayers.
