Growing up without chemo

04:55pm 18 Sep 2009 10 comments

By LEA WHITE

And so we have reached the end of this particular chapter. I wouldn't say the end of our journey, because this won't really ever finish. It will always be part of us - it shaped us and sent us in a direction we never thought about before it all started. And, let's be honest, life in itself is a journey and our experiences and the roads that we walk are all part of this journey. Sometimes the road isn't exactly as you thought and hoped, but whilst you are there, you may as well take time and look around and make the best of it.

Today we are finally closing off this chapter. I know Bianca still has her port. I know she still requires other regular usual medicines, but the chemo part is finished (hopefully forever) and so we wanted to find a way to celebrate this milestone.

We wanted to find something special, something significant, something that will remind us of how very strong Bianca was during all of this and - as a family - how strong we managed to stay regardless of the challenges. I wanted something to remind us that despite what life might throw at us, we are able to stand tall and stay strong.

Today we planted a tree at Bianca's school - an evergreen magnolia tree. It is six years old, just like Bianca. Years from now I hope she will take her children and show them her tree. We recently took Bianca to choose her special tree. She calls it her "Bianca Tree".

What a lovely forecast

07:06pm 17 Sep 2009 0 comments

By LEA WHITE

Isn't this wonderful?

(Reference: Metvuw)

It seems that the forecast is showing a really nice day tomorrow with no rain predicted. So watch the space. Tomorrow morning at 10am (NZ time) will be a very exciting moment for us, we can hardly wait.

The routines we had

07:22pm 14 Sep 2009 0 comments

By LEA WHITE

Last night around 6pm I started getting anxious and kept glancing at the clock to see if Bianca was still eating or finished eating. Usually by that time we need her to be finished eating so that we could time her for her chemo and so that she doesn't go to bed too late and I kept wanting to ask her to stop eating, I actually had to stop myself from saying it, several times.

I had to keep reminding myself that it really didn't matter that she wasn't finished yet. There really was no rush. We don't have to time her anymore. It feels weird and I expect it will take a little while before we get used to it. After all it's been our routine for so long, so it's understandable that it will take a little time.

Bianca didn't go to school today as she has a bit of a persistent cough, so we'll see how she feels tomorrow morning. Hopefully it goes away soon!

Other than that, things are great this side!

No time like the present

06:16pm 13 Sep 2009 1 comment

By LEA WHITE

It ended up being the most magnificent day today.

We woke up to a beautiful sunny day. I arrived at the hospital armed with all the stuff I would need for an overnight stay and then probably an hour after Terence and Caitlyn left, our doctor came past declaring that he really thought she looked too well to stay in hospital. Not only that, but her blood cultures came back negative, she's had no fevers and her counts are busy coming up. Her neutrophils are sitting around 0.74. And so he charted an antibiotic that would last for 24 hours whereafter we had permission to leave. So I quickly sent a message to Terence to come back for us and it is always then that you suddenly wonder why you end up taking so much stuff to the hospital.

We arrived home around 3:30pm, quickly dropped off all our stuff and decided that there really was no time like the present. Bianca knew that she was going to get something special, but more than that she really didn't know and you should have seen her face light up when we stopped in front of the bicycle shop and told her that she would be able to choose a brand new bike. Just before we left we quickly put Caitlyn's new tricycle in the car and so when we arrived at the bicycle shop Terence took it out so that Caitlyn could "choose it".

And then we took advantage of the great weather and took the girls so they could ride their bikes at Bianca's school. It was simply wonderful to see them having so much fun.

End of treatment

03:19pm 12 Sep 2009 2 comments

By LEA WHITE

And now for the post that should have happened last night, the 11th of September, to mark the end of treatment (even though Bianca ended up taking her last chemo tablet on the 10th and the doctor recons we can do a re-enactment of the last chemo tablet with a placebo and take a photo of that).

And even though we are stuck in hospital and our end of treatment plans had to be put on hold, Bianca still added the most important bead of all to her collection, a Purple Heart - this is a very special end-of-treatment bead.