A Chance To Go Home

It has been 12 days since we found out Ashtyn still has cancer requiring another month of chemotherapy. Her healthcare team has been working on getting our Select Med insurance company to approve Daratumumab. The drug is known to bind to a protein on some cell surfaces called CD38 which then causes cell death.  It is difficult to get the drug approved for Ashtyn because Daratumumab is not FDA approved for leukemia even though her cancer cells express CD38. The drug was denied and the decision is now being appealed. The thing with cancer is we don't have a lot of time to sit and wait without treatment before leukemia cells blast off, taking over her entire blood cell production. The decision was made to start chemotherapy on Thursday May 31st using the same regimen she had in April which includes Venetoclax and three chemotherapy drugs: Vincristine, Peg Asparaginase, and Dexamethasone. The hope is that she will stay healthy throughout the 28 day course, and be able to stay as an outpatient.  While fighting cancer she wants to start putting a lot of hours into online schooling and catch up on three years of high school which would enable her to walk at the graduation ceremony with her Brighton graduating class of 2019. Of course the ultimate hope is that she will come out of the June chemo round with a cancer free result and maintain 0.00% leukemia cells for a month while healthy cells grow. We found out Friday that chemotherapy won’t begin until Thursday.  With nothing to do for six days, I asked Ashtyn if she wanted to go home. Before we even left the doctor’s office, flights were purchased to go home Saturday. We are spending Memorial Day weekend at home and will return to Seattle Thursday morning to start chemotherapy Thursday afternoon.