Thursday, August 28, 2008

Nearly Halfway There

Sorry for lack of contact but we've either been stressed, at the hospital or trying to find internet access as there's none at the flat we're in. We're also struggling with mobile reception at the hospital and at the flat so we're feeling rather cut off from reality right now. It is almost as though the three of us are in a bubble with no other life-forms, no mobile phones, no internet...!!!! Very frustrating. But at least the children's TV channel CBeebies is available at the flat for Leo, otherwise we really would be going crazy and it would more like a padded cell required as opposed to a bubble.

Leo's continued to have his radiotherapy this week so day 11 was Tuesday due to the Bank Holiday here in the UK. His chemo at the weekend went well as two of our (and Leo's) favourite nurses were on, Rachel and Ken, who certainly kept on top of the anti-sickness drugs and so whilst Leo was much more tired than normal, he was only sick once or twice. Today was day 13 of radiotherapy so nearly halfway there.

This week, same old issues with the waking up from the general anaesthetic and sedative with today being the worst for some reason. Being strangled by your own three year old is no fun, but hey, what he's going through is no fun either! Unfortunately we've had to spend more time at the hospital than planned as Leo spiked a temperature of 38.6 last night. Luckily he did not need to be admitted, as there was no room at the Marsden anyway and we'd have had to take him to St. George's in Tooting. But as it was, he does have an infection but his bone marrow is currently produces neutrophils to fight it, so Leo just needed a shot of antibiotics last night and twice more today.

Then we're expecting his fourth blood transfusion so far on Monday, as his haemoglobin has dropped past the magic number of 10 so he's currently anaemic and only just so in the case of radiotherapy treatment. For chemo, it can be down to 8 but for radiotherapy they like it to be above 10 due to the impact of the photons on his skull. So he'll have his blood cross-matched tomorrow ready for new blood again on Monday after radiotherapy. Becoming all quite normal!

Busy, busy, busy... and tomorrow's another day followed by a relaxing weekend...or we hope so anyway!