Update on Caroline

I received this update from my dad this morning:

On Thursday, September 3, 2009, Caroline was diagnosed with Leukemia at Texas Children’s Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. Following additional testing, Caroline’s leukemia was specifically identified as Acute Mylogenous Promyeloctic Leukemia (AMPL).

The oncologist told us the prognosis was good that Caroline will be cured and will be able to live a normal life going forward. She then laid out the two and a half year road map for Caroline’s treatment. It will be a very tough first six months for Caroline. As her family, it is extremely difficult to listen to the oncologist tell you that your options are to either (1) ask your child to ingest dangerous and harmful chemicals and poisons or (2) allow her to die. There is obviously no decision to make.

The treatment will include chemotherapy and biologics that have been developed relatively recently for this specific sub-type of leukemia that Caroline has. The treatment phase is divided into three phases; Induction (the first month), Consolidation (5 months) and Maintenance (2 years). Caroline’s treatment began last night (Friday, September 4).

The first two phases of treatment will be particularly tough for Caroline. There will be frequent trips to Texas Children’s, some day trips and some overnight stays. Among the side effects that she may exhibit during this 6 month period are she will probably lose her hair, nausea, mouth sores, a negative impact on her cognitive skills and hamper her learning, and because her immune system will be weakened so dramatically, she will have to stay away from groups of people during this period. This last side effect means that she will have to stay home from school for approximately six months and be home schooled until she is cleared to re-join her classmates in 5th grade. Caroline is more devastated about missing her 5th grade year than almost anything else.

This is obviously a huge hurdle for Caroline, but has been and will be a life altering event for our entire family.

We feel very good about Caroline’s future. We appreciate all of the wonderful thoughts, prayers and offers to help. Caroline and all of us in the family are grateful for all of them.

We will ask you to help Caroline feel connected with her friends and classmates, but to respect her need to stay away from anyone who is or may be sick or have been exposed to someone has been sick. We don’t want to put her in a “bubble”, but we have to be very aware of the risks of infection. Caroline loves mail. We will leave a basket on the front door at our house and we would be happy for people to drop off letters and cards there. We’ll pick them up and take them down to her.

Alexander and Sarah {Caroline's older brother and younger sister} have been deeply affected by this and will need help from their friends as they work through this also. We are so fortunate to have GiGi {Heather's mom} who is a constant source of strength for all of us. I will also ask that each of you think about Heather as she will need everyone's help for the next six months also.