Christmas at the Marsbar.....

1900 Wed 23/12/09

So here we are 3 days into the 4th out of 5 Cycles of Chemo. After having a wonderful 4 ish days at home we returned to the Marsden Monday afternoon this week & started chemo that night.

The 1st night was very good with Anouk sleeping for 12 hrs & no sickness...& for a moment I was thinking this is looking good. Last night the norm kicked in....sleep at about 8 - 8.30pm waking at 3 ish needing a cuddle..ie I feel sick..& then the 4 am vomit & a complete bed wet after the small pull up couldn't handle the amount of fluid she is getting in conjunction with the drugs. So after a bedding change it was back to sleep & then up at about 8am.

Life in the Marsden has returned to normal.

As usual we have been blessed with lots of visitors over the last couple of days & our girls are being spoilt rotten on the present front. Sacha, Duncan, Lexie & Angus..our extended family from Melbourne have been in, Ben & the cousins drove their new mini bus in today & Nic, Richard, Bryn, Nye & Dylan dropped around this afternoon. Ellen has been coming around after finishing work in the Medical Day unit.

We also had a very good meeting today with Stergios who is the boss. As per the result of the last MRI we are, at this stage, winning this battle & he believes that we are going to win. Anouk has continued to handle the chemo well & on the law of averages she should have had a few visits to PICU by now.

The program from now on is as follows. Anouk will complete the 5 cycles of Chemo treatment & then have another MRI. She will then go straight into a High Dose cycle of Chemo. This is as it suggests & higher dose of what she is getting, no new drugs as such but a lot more of what she currently gets. A fry up basically that will potentially make her more sick & also trash her bone marrow which is why she had the Stem Cell harvesting a while ago so as she can have a transplant after the drugs have finished. This means that she will have a longer period of her immune system being shot as it takes a while for the stems cells to start growing after they have been transplanted.

She will then have a period of recovery so she is as strong as she can be before starting Radiation treatment. Radiation will be 5 days a week for 6 weeks & she will have a general anesthetic every day as an out patient. The setup for the Radiation is critical. Her Tumor is at the back of her brain which is better than at the front but as with all the treatment she is receiving, there are risks involved but these are outweighed by the long term goal...getting rid of the bastard.

On her current schedule Anouk will have High Dose chemo during Feb..ish, March...ish recovering & then starting Radiation in April finishing mid may. Then a good 4 + weeks after radiation has finished she will have an MRI & hopefully all this treatment has worked enough for Anouk to be let free but scanned every 3 months. Surgery is still an option if things were to change & it was deemed appropriate.

Until then it's life as per usual here at the Marsbar. Anouk is handling the chemo well so far & the biggest drama has been that her NG (Nasal Gastric) tube became blocked & we nearly had to pull the blocked one out & put a new one in. The job of unblocking was delegated down 3 nurses to the new one on the ward as no one wanted the job of putting a new one in. Luckily it finally became unblocked & we all felt much at ease!!! Anouk fell asleep at 5 this afternoon which means she will be awake very soon & up to all hours as a result!

To all our wonderful friends & family thankyou so much for all your love & support & we wish you all a Merry Christmas & a happy 2010.