Six Degrees of Healing

As was mentioned at the end of the last entry, Team Taylor is eager to collect as much information and perspectives as possible as it pertains to the medicines and treatment stages and paths. Below is an excerpt from an email from the Executive Branch of Team Taylor (i.e. Joe, Paul, Mom and Dad) and it covers who can help most as well as educating all of us on the road map for our Hero's treatment:

We have to make a major decision regarding the possibility of Joe participating in the Clinical Study of Standard Risk B-precursor Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia by Friday this week 11/23.

We are reaching out to you because we know you’ll either:
- Read the enclosure because you just want to know what’s going as a friend or family member.
- Perhaps you’re in a situation that you can pass it on to someone in the medical field you are related to or are friends with to see what they think of it.
- Or you plan to study it (specifically the drug types) on the internet to see what you find out about it. (We find it very hard to surf on the internet for this type of stuff because you run in to so many horror stories; We're not really up to reading those right now.)

Standard Risk ALL is treated as follows:

Induction (28 days) – purpose of induction is to achieve remission; meaning leukemia is no longer detected in blood or marrow

Consolidation “C” (28 days) – designed to prevent the appearance of leukemia in the central nervous system and further decrease appearance of leukemia cells.

Intensified Maintenance “IM” (56 days) – allows the child to recover from prior treatment phases and administer less intense chemotherapy

Delayed Intensification “DI” (56 days approx.) – more intensive chemotherapy is given. First part of treatment is similar to induction, but includes new drugs.

Maintenance – lasts about 3 years for boys. Long term treatment that is necessary to achieve a permanent cure. Boys have shown needing longer treatment than girls (a year more).

If you are interested in reading the enclosures mentioned above, just leave a comment stating so and we'll be sure to get you the docs to read.

Thanks All!