Background Infomation

Back in November, we were seeing our pediatrician because Logan had enlarged lymph nodes in his neck. At that time we did some blood work and a chest x-ray everything came back normal and we were referred to an Ear Nose and Throat specialist. He did a cat scan and we discovered that Logan had a bad sinus infection. He also did some more blood work and it was recommended that we see an allergist. After her round of testing... she couldn't find anything Logan was allergic to. That all ended in January. We went back for a followup appointment with the allergist earlier this month and she did some blood work that came back with a low white blood cell count. After 3 more blood tests to rule out other disease, we were referred to a pediatric hematologist / oncologist. He did another blood test that came back suspicious for leukemia and ordered a bone marrow biopsy. We got the results on Friday that Logan has a rare form of the disease called Acute Myelogenous Leukemia that affects the bone marrow and white blood cells. Tomorrow he get’s a Hickman Catheter put in his chest for administering meds and drawing blood. Then Thursday or Friday he will start chemotherapy. For the next 2 weeks he’ll be very sick from the drugs. After he recovers, it will begin again. The success rate for remission of this type of leukemia is 65%. His chances are greatly increased if Amanda is a tissue match to donate bone marrow to him. We'll know more about that in about 2 months. If she is not a genetic match, we will continue with the chemo. We are anticipating this whole process to take around 9 months, but it's hard to tell. If he has problems staying in remission, we will need to look for an anonymous bone marrow donor.