I know Mollie is feeling better because she's asking to wear fancy clothes instead of letting me pick out her outfits. We had a fun time with bubbles yesterday!

Consolidation is the second phase of Mollie's treatment for A.L.L. I don't have the protocol right in front of me, but it is roughly a month long and consists of at least three spinal taps plus IV chemo and chemo daily (oral). There are no steroids during this phase- not sure if that's good or bad yet. We will find out as we go through it.

Mollie is not in a clinical trial, but she is being treated using the protocol that was most recently used at our hospital. The hospital participates in the Children's Oncology Group and the protocol # is AALL0331. Right now, Mollie is considered standard risk because of her age, sex, WBC at presentation, and low cancer burden at day 7. This could change depending on the cytogenetics and bone marrow results.

Tomorrow she will to start consolidation therapy as long as her counts are good and her cough is gone (I am dubious). Day 1 involves a spinal tap/IT methotrexate , IV vincristine, and oral mercaptopurine (6-MP). This phase lasts about a month, then there is the interim maintennance (IM), lasting about 2 months, and then the worst phase (or so I hear) is the delayed intesification. We should be hitting that right around the holidays if all goes as scheduled.

But for now, Mollie is doing great! She is much sweeter, more cooperative, more energetic, and silly without the steroids. Her hair is coming out in big handfulls at a time. She is worried about it, and we keep reassuring her that it will grow back. We've given her options... getting a wig, going au naturel, putting stickers or temporary tattoos on her head (the sticker idea came from Serenity-- see blog list), or wearing hats/scarves. She likes the sticker idea. Anyway, talking about it and looking at photos of other kids going through it seems to be helping.