The blood test revealed that Joshua’s platelet count was low and his white blood cell count was high. The doctor told me a few things that might be the root cause of this, and it was at this point that he first said the word “leukemia.” He routed us to the hematology department at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. Jana left school and met us there. They took some more blood and then the doctor confirmed the diagnosis – Joshua has leukemia.

We are learning at least some of what that means. Essentially, leukemia is a cancer of the blood. The bone marrow is responsible for producing the different types of blood cells, and in Joshua, something has gone bad in the bone marrow. He is producing cancerous cells and that needs to be corrected. So after we checked into the hospital on Wednesday, Joshua began chemotherapy on Thursday. He had medicine injected into his spinal fluid to eradicate any cancerous cells that were in that fluid which flows around his brain. He also took medicines orally and had some more injected in through his IV.

Chemotherapy basically has two purposed (as we understand it so far). The first purpose if to kill the cancerous cells. Unfortunately, in killing these cells, it also kills the good ones. That’s why chemo patients become more susceptible to disease and infection; their good, disease fighting cells have been killed off along with the bad ones. The second purpose is to try and correct the problem inside the marrow so that they don’t keep on producing bad cells.

Amazingly enough, there is chance that Joshua could be in remission by day 7 or 8 of chemotherapy. That would mean that he has less than 5% of his cells that have been affected by leukemia. Regardless of how quickly he responds to it however, he will have treatments for the next 3 years; most of that time hopefully will be spent doing prevention and maintanance.