We’ve been anxiously waiting all morning for Dr. Abuasab to stop by. He showed up around noon with residents in tow.

He has given Shannon a diagnosis of:
Early T-Cell Precursor Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ETP ALL).

He said that 10 years ago the prognosis would be much worse but in the last 3 years they’ve made some discoveries and advancements in treatment. The plan will be to do 3 to 4 rounds of chemotherapy then proceed with a bone marrow transplant to give her a new immune system and do our best to keep it from returning.

She will start chemotherapy today here at Baylor St. Luke’s Hospital.  Each cycle  of chemotherapy is approximately 3 weeks which consists of 5 days of chemotherapy and about 2 weeks of rest/recovery before starting another round. 

He noted that this type of cancer will sometimes move to and hide in the brain and spinal cord. To prevent this from happening, they will give her chemotherapy directly into her intrathecal space(the fluid-filled space between the thin layers of tissue that cover the brain and spinal cord). This will be done in IR (Interventional Radiology)under flouroscopy (basically video x-ray). He said they will have to do this about 10 times total.

Once Chemotherapy starts, keeping Shannon infection-free will be a high priority.  I know a lot of people want to visit her but we will be severely limiting visitors to reduce the amount of germs  she’s coming into contact with. With the advice of her team here we will develop an appropriate protocol to keep her safe.

Around 2pm a woman named Elsa stopped by. She was with Dr Abuasab when he gave us the diagnosis.  Elsa is the RN Nurse Navigator for the Oncology Team. She is somewhat of a liaison and can help us with resources.  She’ll be helping us with appointment scheduling,  making sure we are getting the correct outpatient meds, and helping with other non-medical needs such as copay assistance. She also explained in detail about what we should expect.  In between chemo treatments,  Shannon will go the the Oncology Outpatient clinic at St Lukes for labs every Monday and Thursday morning. If blood counts are too low, she will get blood and/or platelet transfusions in the clinic if needed.

We are expecting to be here in the hospital another 14 days or so.