Joss' Story - Part 2
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Joss Cook
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Joss Cook
Picking up where I left off with the last update—right after we got the diagnosis—the doctor didn’t waste any time. The very next thing we heard was the treatment plan, and it was immediate. We learned quickly that pediatric cancers, unlike many adult ones, can grow and spread much faster. That means doctors have to act faster, with aggressive treatment right from the start, to give kids the best chance at beating it.
Joss had just two days to rest and be prepped in the hospital, and then, on October 1st, she started the first phase of her treatment: the induction phase. It’s a tough, intense month where multiple chemotherapy drugs are used to wipe out as many cancer cells as possible from her blood and bone marrow.
That morning was overwhelming—she had surgery to place a chemo port in her chest so they can give treatments without constant needle sticks (a small mercy in all of this). She also had a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) and a bone marrow aspirate done. These were to gather spinal fluid and bone marrow for testing, confirming her diagnosis and helping shape the plan moving forward.
These two procedures—the lumbar puncture and marrow aspirate—will be repeated regularly throughout her treatment, since leukemia cells can sometimes hide or return later. But in this first round of testing, we got a piece of good news: her spinal fluid came back classified as CNS 1, which means no evidence of leukemia cells in her central nervous system. Thank God!
We won’t know the full picture until the end of these 29 days of induction, but here’s what we do know: for now, Joss will go in weekly for outpatient chemo treatments over the next 4 to 6 months. After that, she’ll begin monthly treatments that could stretch over the next one to two years.
We’re taking it one step, one day, and one appointment at a time. 💛
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