About Leukemia:

What is Leukemia?
Why do some of us get Leukemia, but most do not? Does the person with Leukemia have something wrong with his/her defenses? Was the "something wrong" always there and that's how leukemia got going?

Leukemia is a form of Bone marrow cancer.

The possible causes are usually divided into 3 groups:
1. Genetic (something you're born with)
2. Environmental (coming from your surroundings)
3. Immunologic (you're body's ability to defend itself)

There are different kinds of Leukemia.

Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia: This is commonly known as "childhood Leukemia" and is often referred to as ALL. More boys get it than girls. White children get it more than black children. If leukemia affects you quickly, they are "acute". If they affect you slowly, they are "chronic". The malignant cell in ALL is an abnormal lymphocyte called a lymphoblast ("blast" for short), or a leukemia cell. The blast seems to cause trouble mainly by crowding the bone marrow so that normal cells have a hard time growing. The blasts don't kill the normal cells, they just get in the way. Blasts start out in your bone marrow and they fill that up, but then they go to other places, too. They can go to your lymph nodes or to your liver or spleen.

Blasts stay immature and keep dividing when they shouldn't. Because they are so immature, they can't do their work. They don't know how to be soldiers. When trouble comes, they don't give any orders, or do any fighting.

The common symptoms of ALL are:
1. Feeling tired all the time
2. Fever
3. Easy bruising or bleeding
4. Bone pain
5. Large lymph nodes
6. Big swollen tummy

The common signs are:
1. Pale skin and gums
2. Fever
3. Bruises
4. Tender bones
5. Big lymph nodes
6. Big spleen or liver

If the doctor thinks you have Leukemia, he will want to look at your blood. The doctor wants to know if all the cells that should be there, are there. Do all the cells look like they supposed to, and most important, are there any blasts? Often, just by looking at the blood, doctors can learn what kind of disease you have. There is one more test that you doctor used to decide for sure that you have Leukemia. This is the bone marrow test. Bone marrow is inside your bones, so it's a little harder to get than blood. Doctors will usually take marrow out through a needle from the back of your hip bone.

What doctors do with your bone marrow is pretty much the same as what they do with your blood. They will count all the cells and they will look for blasts.

How doctors treat Leukemia:
The main idea in treating your Leukemia is to get you into a state called REMISSION. Remission is when you don't have any symptoms or signs of leukemia, and when your blood and bone arrow tests don't show any leukemia cells. Remission is not the same as being cured. Some people are staying in remission for so many years that their doctors think they may be cured. But for now, getting you in remission and keeping you there, is the main goal.
The way that doctors get you into remission is by a process called Induction. During your induction, doctors may use many drugs and try to kill as many leukemia cells as they can, no matter where the cells are hiding in your body. The drugs that you will receive will be chosen especially for you, based on things like how old you are and what kind of leukemia you have. The drugs used to kill leukemia cells are extremely strong.

Many of these drugs have to be put right into a blood vessel, so the doctor may want you to have a tube called a "right atrial catheter" placed in your chest. The RA catheter is put in place by a surgeon. A catheter is a soft plastic tube with one end resting in the right atrium of your heart and the other end of the tube either comes out through the skin of your chest or just ends at your skin, depending on the kind of catheter that is used. This will be used to give you the things you need that must be given into a vein without having to give you a shot everytime.

Complications of Leukemia:
Anemia – if your red blood cell count gets to low you may need to have a blood transfusion. This is when you are given blood from a healthy person. It will give you the red cells you need to carry oxygen. Bleeding – If you don't have enough platelets, your blood vessels may begin to leak. Infections – Infections can happen when your white count gets too low, or just because your cells aren't working too well.

Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy means treating a sickness with chemicals or drugs. Each drug has its own way of killing blasts. The amount of each drug that you get can also depend on how your body reacts to it. The other things that drugs do, besides what we want them to do, are called side effects.

Possible side effects:
1. Weakness
2. Constipation
3. Hair loss
4. Loss of appetite and nausea or vomiting
5. Bone marrow depression
6. Fever
7. Big appetite and weight gain
8. Mood changes
9. Higher blood pressure
10. High blood sugar
11. Tiredness
12. Bleeding
13. Sore mouth
14. Diarrhea
15. Sores in your mouth
16. Headache
17. Sore throat
18. Skin rash
19. Liver damage
20. Depression of the blood count
21. Mucositis