Yesterday was my last day of receiving nelarabine for my second cycle of this drug. Hopefully that is the last nelarabine I ever need, as the doctors will be assessing whether I am in remission on Thursday by looking at my bone marrow. If fewer than 5% of cells are blast cells then Im in remission and will move on to the next phase of treatment which is a bone marrow transplant.

Thankfully, I have a 10/10 match donor who will be donating some of his stem cells, however the transplant team at PMH has made it seem like we will need to go to Cleveland or Buffalo for my transplant as the wait time for a stem cell transplant in Ontario is too long. 

So, if the bone marrow is clear that speeds things up quite a bit, if the bone marrow isnt clear, I will likely do another cycle of nelarabine. 

In addition, I have continued to receive lumbar punctures twice a week in order to fight the leukemia within my CSF. There is definitely less cancer in my CSF since the first LP they did a few weeks ago but Im unsure if its fully clear yet. Hopefully weve had at least one clear one. 

Overall, right now Im mostly waiting to see how my bone marrow looks and trying to blast the CSF cancer with LPs.

I know I went without an update for a while, sorry about that!

Still fighting,

Ethan Wissell