Abby,
Sorry to hear of your recent woes! My husband had AML m4 with trisomy 8 in March of 2013! He contracted shingles which delayed his consolidation treatments until mid June! He did fine! No return of that nasty beast! He developed an infection while neutopenic after the consolidation and delayed his Stem cell transplant until August. The AML did not return! So hang in there, trust your doctors, stay positive and eat and exercise as much as possible. This will help you combat the effects if the conditioning before transplant! Try not to stress it will bring you down! Stay up and fight on!

So glad you're done w reinduction and in remission!!! Glad to hear of the perfect match as well this time! We had a similar scenario w our donor. We started reinduction April 26-may1st, counts dropped and started to recover may 22, bMB on May 28 showed clean results. Doc wanted transplant admit week of June 20th-ish but donor unavailable till after 27th, she said if it had been 1 more week she'd give tony a 5 day course of azacytadine Injection chemo (not as hard on you as cytarbine) to bridge the gap.
but we were able to get it coordinated. so we checked in July 2 for conditioning and transplanted July 10th (We are day +5 today) we were home about 6 weeks from discharge to readmit. She said there is no evidence or literature that more chemo/consolidation benefits the patient unless it is more than 8 weeks In between (Dr Wendy Stock, univ of Chicago hospital, she's actually one of nations leading hematologists, so we totally trust her recommendations)
Hope this helps, what day did you discharge? When did your counts recover, when was your bmb showing remission?

Abby

So glad to hear that you are again in remission. My son is awaiting his BMT and his doctor has him doing consolidation 1 week per month until his BMT.

I agree, trust your doctors they know what is best. Stay strong and have faith. You are in my daily prayers.

Karen

I am glad the induction worked and you are back in remission and in a position for a new transplant. I was also 6 weeks from last consolidation to conditioning chemo for transplant. I did one induction and went into remission, then I had 1 week of consolidation each month for 3 months while they/we decided on transplant. They would have wanted to do another consolidation to ensure that I stayed in remission had I went much longer than the 6 weeks.

Lea, I am surprised at the spans between consolidation that Dr. Stock told you. I was told and have read that the best results have came when there was a short duration between consolidations, like the monthly ones I was getting. I am not sure how they arrive at the number you need. I was told in the beginning at least 3 rounds.

Please keep us updated on your progress, prayers to you and your family.

Dave J

oh and I agree with Karen, go with your docs recommendations, I have always done exactly what they have told me to do and it has netted me good results thus far.

Dave J

Sorry, yes Dave, just to clarify, his doc said time frame b/w his re-induction chemo and transplant was ok to be 6 weeks, she was not referring to induction and consolidation rounds. That is 1x every 4 weeks, gold standard. Sorry if I was unclear, I was only talking about our conversation regarding time In between his re-induction and transplant conditioning.
Bottom line, even in "complete remission" they know that there is the potential of minimal residual disease lingering, but the transplant chemo regiments&drugs are myeloablative, and much stronger than cytarabine, with no chance of your own stemcells ever regenerating and recovering as they do after induction & consolidation chemo. So even if there is a bad cell left behind, the pre-transplant regiment is designed to "ideally" take care of these, along with the donor cells recognizing them as foreign and bad, then seeking & destroying them as well.
Ok, hope I making better sense now,I think I'm rambling

Hi Abby.
I had induction and one consolidation chemo (the usual). Last chemo was on 11/20/12. I started BMT chemo on 1/15/2013. There was short delay due to hospital/insurance/room availability. Main concern voiced by BMT onc was the time since my last BMB (12/28/2012). The decision was that although we were stretching it, it was still within a reasonable time frame. I think the call he made was specific to my DX - medium risk aml. There was no additional treatment in between.
Best of luck.
Boris

I can not remember who, but I thought I read somewhere that someone was in a similar position and they did a little chemo .... like a top up as they wanted them to stay in remission before the BMT.

you know the drills, just keep up your strength / water as much as possible so you are good for the BMT

xox

Abby,

Although I can not provide any advise regarding BMT, I wanted to be sure to tell you how grateful to God I am that you prevailed through Induction and are in complete remission! I pray for you daily-for complete cure! You are in my thoughts!!!

Blessings,

Julie

Hi Abby,
Congratulations on making it through you re-induction! I am so happy to hear that you are now in complete remission and have a 10/10 donor. I relapsed too and had to go through re-induction chemo, then I think it was about 7 weeks before my transplant, it kept being delayed for some reason. My Heme/Onc said he thought I would be fine and did not need consolidation but my transplant team wanted me to do consolidation. Well, I went with my Heme/Onc and everything stayed clean. I was able to spend Holidays with my family and rest up. The waiting is so hard when things get delayed because you just want to be done and get a move on! Again I am so thankful to hear of your wonderful results and that your on your way to good health and a cure!
Take Care,
Suzanne

Thank you all!

My team want me to go through a round of consolidation chemo. I think the reasons are:
- I relapsed once, they don't want to take the risk of me relapsing again. Even if it's a very small risk. I believe each relapse makes it harder to treat
- If I don't have another round, it means about 10-12 weeks since I started my reinduction until transplant (7-8 weeks probably between discharge to readmit) and they're worried it's too long (although they also say there's nothing in the research literature that says what's the "right" amount of time to wait, I think it's a matter of balancing risks)

I am worried about having another round, the toxicity and the recovery, but I also know I'm lucky to have a 10/10 donor, even if it means waiting longer than I'd like...

Thanks all!
Abby

great news Abby

In the break or before I would just flush all those toxins as much as possible and get your strength back 200%

Maybe stay in the low bacteria, keep away from germs phase as you have the extra little chemo top up.

So pleased they found a donor for you

xoxo

Abby -- for sure what your team is recommending will be the best for you so take confidence in it and be patient. Yes, it is a balancing act -- almost all of life's decisions are -- the optimal point is between the extremes. Hopefully they will not over-do it, but taking one last shot at the mutant stem cell(s) that are causing all of this stuff will be well worth it. So, take confidence in your doing the right thing and not rushing things. You are on the right track. Thanks for keeping us up on things -- dave

My schedule was a bit screwy, but I switched centers between induction and transplant. The consolidation round was agreed on by both centers.
My reinduction started 10-Dec-2012. My transplant chemo started 6-Apr-2013. With transplant on 12-Apr-2013. My platelets weren't completely recovered, but they weren't too worried. I had a round of consolidation started 14-Feb-2013. My transplant got pushed back due to slow recovery and then they thought my sister (she was a half match, not a full) was getting sick so we hit moved a week. That consolidation round was a lower dose than my other consolidations.