Quincy, the “Miracle Kid” is what his oncologist, Dr. Kuo, calls him.
Why?
1. His hair stayed intact through the first 2 rounds of chemo. (We are in round 3 now and it’s starting to fall out).
2. His blood levels return to normal after each round which has never been seen here. One doctor said, “What’s this kid made of”?!
3. While all the other kids are in their rooms, Quincy is out and about, running and bouncing his basketball, charming all the nurses. They are baffled by his energy during treatments.
4. And the biggest surprise of all: He’s the only patient they’ve ever had that tested for positive blasts and negative leukemia results after the first round.
Long story short…
After the first round, his bone marrow biopsy showed 33% blasts which led the doctors to believe that the chemo didn’t work.
Friday, we were told he’d need harsher chemo and a bone marrow transplant.
This was the worst news of our lives. Like getting a diagnosis wasn’t enough… worst weekend EVER…
But they were WRONG.
Monday, Dr. Kuo came skipping into the room with news that he was in remission!
So how did this colossal mistake happen?
Bone marrow biopsy results happen in 2 phases.
Phase I, a pathologist looks for blasts. Blasts are immature cells. They don’t necessarily mean they are cancerous. They are just undeveloped cells.
Phase II, a machine called a flow cytometer, figures out if those blasts contain Leukemia and how much. The results are called MRD results (Minimal Residual Disease). If the MRD is positive, then your blasts have leukemia and vice versa of course. It takes a few days for this report to become available.
Quincy’s pathologist saw 33% blasts and quickly called Dr. Kuo with the bad news. Never in anyones career here at Rady Childrens have they seen blasts with a negative MRD report. So they didn’t think to wait for the flow cytometer report. They just assumed that Quincy still had Leukemia and they wanted to tell us right away so we could start processing the info and get Reece tested to be the bone marrow donor.
Obviously, HUGE mistake on their behalf for jumping the gun before all the results were in, and believe me, I called a meeting with them and demanded apologies and explanations (I got tearful apologies from all four doctors. They humbly told me that they learned a huge lesson and will approach things differently going forward). One of the doctors told me that she spent her Saturday researching the possibility of having that many blasts but also having negative MRD… she found ONE report. Now Quincy is the second reported case in the WORLD.
What a miracle kid.
