1/13/25
In support of
Jade Cato's Recovery
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Jade Cato's Recovery
Jade did not make her counts today to get the escalated dose of methotrexate. Her ANC was 330 and it needs to be at least 500. We will check again on Friday, but we know it won’t be escalated this time due to her not making counts in time. It will likely be the same dosing as the one 10 days ago.
If you were just looking for the short update then that’s all.
But I wanted to explain a little more about leukemia, because I know people have questions and ask often about her remission status or why she is still having chemo if she is in remission. It will be a little longer but I’ll go into specific details of the leukemia Jade has. Leukemia is blood cancer. Your blood is made up of white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. Leukemia is cancer of the white blood cells, but it ends up effecting your red blood cells and platelets because the cancer crowds out all the healthy cells. This is why patients often need the support of blood transfusions at first and then again when chemo is given to kill all the bad cells. White blood cells are made up of myeloid cells and lymphocytes. Jade had cancer in both myeloid and lymphocytes which is incredibly rare. Now I know why when we were first admitted we had 20 doctors in our room every morning. This may possibly be the only time they will see this in their career. It was the first time for most of Jade’s team dealing with this type of cancer. It’s called Mixed phenotype acute leukemia. There are different subsets of this leukemia. It can be mixed phenotype and that means that the blasts express both cancers on a specific blast or it can be mixed lineage, which means that there are two different types of blast that both show cancer. Jade has mixed linage. A lot of times when I would ask questions I wouldn’t get a straight answer at first until they would consult with the head oncologist. Dr. Slayton is Jade’s head oncologist. The first time I met him I felt in my soul that he would be a crucial part of Jade’s recovery. He took time with me. My broken and shattered heart cried and pleaded for answers…. And the thing is… no one has exact answers…. It’s all how you respond to treatment and it varies for everyone. With blood cancer, remission is the beginning not the end. When a bone marrow biopsy is done and you have over 20% blast (immature white blood cells) you are given a cancer diagnosis. When Jade’s first BM biopsy was done…. She had 100% leukemic cells…. I was terrified. Dr. Slayton came to me and said he was still confident Jade would get into remission. People with leukemia need to get their bone marrow reset to produce healthy cells instead of leukemic cells. That is done with chemotherapy or a bone marrow transplant. Because Jade’s cancer is so rare there is not a 100% agreed upon treatment plan. Chemotherapy is less aggressive than a transplant because there are so many risks to the patient not accepting the donor’s bone marrow. Also, finding a match can be difficult. Parents match their children 50% and sibling can be a 0%,50%, or 100% match. We were all tested and Demi and Sawyer match each other 100%, but they are a 0% match to Jade. This news was hard for me. (Really hard). Wade or I would likely be Jade’s donor if it came to that. You can be a half match donor and parents are used often because coordination with a donor can take too much time. We are not on the route of needing a transplant at this time because she was brought into remission by chemo alone, but this information is important to know. Staging for leukemia is different than other cancers. I can tell you Jade is high risk. I can tell you when she presented, her spleen and liver were both enlarged due to cancer. I can tell you her white blood count was 150 (normal is around 10) with 100% leukemic cells detected. I can tell you that after cytogenetic was done at diagnosis she had what is called a complex karotype. This means that the leukemia had altered her chromosomes in such a way that out of the 20 chromosome they looked at only 2 were the normal XX you would typically see. I can tell you none of those are good things when you’re dealing with cancer. But I can also tell you that Jade responded to chemo and her treatment plan incredibly well and was brought into remission after 30 days. She was MRD (mininmal residual disease) negative after the 2nd round. The next time she had a BM biopsy, she had all normal chromosomes of the 20 tested and 0.00% leukemic cells detected! I’m not a doctor, by any means, but I am my child’s advocate. I ask as many questions as I can. I try to figure out as much as I can about everything she is going through so I gain more knowledge and understanding. Sharing it is the only way I know how to let the people that love her really know what she is going through and what she has endured. She smiles every day. She loves her life. She loves her family and friends. But she is battling and fighting everyday! I know I’ve been posting more often, I think it’s because all this information can be so heavy to sit with. I know I can’t do it alone and I know God has been carrying us through. The prayers, support, love, and words of encouragement we get from friends and family help so much. People send me songs and scripture that are laid on their heart and I appreciate those so much. Please keep on praying for Jade. Please know that I am forever grateful for the support everyone has shown us.
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