Hey, Students! Look here to talk with Mrs. Scott!

Hello, Vikings!

I miss spending the days with you, but know you are in good hands with all the teachers and staff there at school. I thought I'd create a special post here so that if you want to write or ask questions, you can do so. I'll check it as often as possible, and hopefully you'll feel like I'm still there with ya...except I won't be taking those recess minutes to share my words of wisdom! (Lucky you!)

Some of you may have heard that I have Leukemia. Yep, it's true. But what I have found out this last week, is that people have very different pictures in their heads about what this looks like, and acts like. The truth is, there are many different types of Leukemia. Mine is called APL, to say the short version. So, what is mine like? Well, I still look the same, except I am wearing my PJs all day (lucky me!). Really nice doctors and nurses come talk to me during the day, they bring me my food in bed, they give me medicine to help me feel better, and I read books, go for small walks around the hospital, and write to you guys! The medicine I take is very special, because it only works on my type of Leukemia. Scientists and doctors have done research with genes and found how to do "target practice" on the bad cells in my body, and eventually reverse the mutation. Pretty cool, huh? So, I'll be gone for a while getting better, but the good news is...I'm getting better.

So, first let's talk about Genes...Heredity...(are you singing yet?) Well, this week I've learned that my genes had a mutation. They changed unexpectedly; I didn't inherit the problem, or get it from an environmental change...it just happened. The genes in my bone marrow (the middle part of the bone) changed a bit so that the blood cells it makes only grow a little bit. Because they did not grow into adult blood cells, they didn't leave the bone marrow to protect my body from sicknesses and made it hard to produce other important types of cells. What this meant for me, was that I would get pale (look a little more white than my white self), I was more tired than usual, and if I got bumped just a little, I would get a nice, nasty bruise.

Other blood cells were also affected, like my white blood cells. They are kind of "retarded" due to the mutations, so they are not able to fight off germs as well. This is one of the main reasons why I need to stay in the hospital. If I get around any germs right now, I will get really sick. Normally, the white blood cells fight off the germs that make us sick, so even if you start to get sick, you'll get better eventually. Not me, for a while. Those retarded white cells don't know what to do with germs, and there aren't that many in my body, anyways, compared to "normal" people. (Yea, we know who the "normal" ones are!) So, over the next few months, the medicine I am taking is getting rid of the mutated and retarded cells, and is helping to fix the mutation in the DNA back to what it was before, so it will produce healthy blood cells again. Pretty amazing.....are you impressed? I sure am!


Hopefully this helps you understand a bit more about why I'm not there with you at school. Recently Mrs. Underwood and Mrs. Steele delivered a package to me....TONS of flowers made of colored tissue! They are so beautiful! They are hanging as garland on the wall, and bunches are in vases all over my room. It looks soooo much better in here. The nurses come in and just stare with smiles on their faces. It's great fun to look at, and makes me happy thinking of you. Thank you for all the work you put into that and also the great letters/valentines. Really. Thank you.

Leave me a comment if you'd like, and I'll try to answer back. If you have stuff you'd like send to me just give it to Mrs. Underwood and she'll get it to me somehow. Be excellent to each other, because I know you are just that. And remember that learning is FUN, no matter what the subject is.

Thinking of you often,
~Mrs. Scott