Having fun and a bit of normality

It's a Bank Holiday here in the UK so typical rubbish, grey weather today. But yesterday we spent the afternoon with all of our old friends over in Bath which was so lovely. Nice to see everyone and so nice to see Leo having fun, and lots of it, with Maisie. She's just 3 months older than Leo and they get along so well.

When Leo told our friends we were going to Spain tomorrow (?), he said his favourite thing in the world was Jack and swimming in Jack's pool. It was so sweet but made me sad at the same time, because how do you explain to a 3 year old that we won't be able to go back to Spain and our wonderful lives for quite a while. It is very heartening though that he still feels so warm and happy about our experience in Spain, so when it comes to moving back, at least Leo will be 100% behind us! But he'll be at least 4 years old by the time we head back.

I also didn't realise we have a famous person in our family...Maisie was watching the F1 from Monaco yesterday and at the winning presentation asked her Daddy..

"What's PJ going to do with that trophy?"

You've guessed it..she thought Lewis Hamilton was PJ!! Not only am I wondering what he's done with the trophy but where's all that cash?

We had planned to stay at our friend's which we had thought would help Leo with a bit more normality but over and over, he kept saying he would only put his pyjamas on at Clic House. So we got a cab back to Bristol to stay at Clic House (and he fell asleep in his t-shirt anyway so no pyjamas); PJ and I were pleased Leo feels happy to want to stay here at Clic House as it must be a bit odd for him either staying here or at the hospital.

This morning when Leo woke up, he pointed to his pillow and said,

"All my hair is coming out; look, it's all over my pillow".

I explained that all his hair was going to fall out and then it'll grow back but his response was so sad. He said he didn't want it to fall out as he liked his new haircut! Bless him!

Seeing my parents today and PJ is going to have a well deserved siesta this afternoon while we try to entertain Leo. My dad has not seen us for a couple of weeks so no doubt he may find it hard with Leo's hair being nearly gone, but at least Leo is well today. The only thing wrong currently is he won't eat and so we have to be careful that he hasn't got any mouth ulcers as they can become easily infected. Plus he needs to put all the weight on which he lost in his first round of chemo when he stopped eating for 5 days. When he went into hospital he weighed 15.2 kg and one week after starting his first IVA chemo cycle, his weight had dropped by 2 kilos to 13.2 kg. So we've been advised to give him cakes and sweets and other high calorie foods but he can't have cakes due to his nut and egg allergies, and then he won't even eat sweets right now!!

Thanks for your messages and texts this week and I apologise to those of you in our Spanish family who unfortunately have massive mobile phone bills! So one task for me this week is to explore cheaper ways for us all the talk on the phone so we can keep in touch but without bankrupting ourselves.