Remission

Remission. What a beautiful word!

I guess before, I had some misconceptions about remission. Which is interesting, because my mom is cured from more than one kind of cancer, and before you can be called cured, you have to be in remission for a certain amount of time. But my mom was never very vocal about her cancer. In fact, when she had breast cancer, she didn't tell any of us until after she had gone through surgery to remove it, and had started her radiation treatments.

I always thought that once someone was in remission, they were done with their treatment. After all, the cancer is gone, right? So five weeks ago, when they told us that the first phase of treatment was called induction because it induces remission, and that Matthew was 97% likely to be in remission after 28 days, it didn't click with me. If they can induce remission in 28 days, why does he have to be in treatment for 3 years and 3 months?

Well, I've heard a few things. Most importantly, if they stopped now, and didn't do any more treatments, the cancer would just come right back. See, the test they do is very accurate, but they don't have any way of detecting the smallest markers of Leukemia. So, even though they can't see any cancer on the scans, that doesn't necessarily mean it's all gone. There could still be some hiding out in weird places.

The big thing, as far as I understand it anyway, is that they still have to change the way the bone marrow works. The bone marrow is the organ that makes the blood. If it isn't "reset," it will just make new Leukemia cells, and we'll be back to square one.

So, while we're celebrating, we do know we're nowhere near being out of the woods, yet. It's a fantastic first step. What has been accomplished is the eradication of the cancer in his blood. That horrible month before his diagnosis - the swollen glands and nodes that would not soften, the fevers, the pain, the doctors, the antibiotics - that month was a manifestation of his cancer, which is now gone. Even though we're just getting started with his treatment, this is definitely something to celebrate!

Matthew is in remission!