Cycle 7

Almost halfway. Soon we will be able to start counting down the days until we won't have such regular visits to the hospital. The day went quite well. Karli and I were both relaxed and easy going about it all today, which is fairly unusual. Oliver was his usual beautiful and cute self, playing up to all the nurses and enjoying the attention. We even managed to get him to sleep today - probably due to the fact that we were put in room 6, and so had a nice quite space to ourselves. We even managed to finally catch up with the music therapist, Louise. Every other time we have tried Oliver has either been too unwell, asleep, or we have taken off before she was available. I think Oliver enjoyed it. He seems to like music and is always keen to bop along.

We've been having troubles with his nasogastric tube of late. Apart from the couple of visits to the hospital to have it re-inserted after our ratbag pulled it out, it seems to be getting blocked more regularly, making it difficult to get his meds in. It has been more of a nuisance up until now, because for the next 5 days we will be giving him his steroids and there is a specific amount he needs to get. He also receives mercaptopurine, the one that I need to administer with gloves. needless to say, I'm not too keen on that coming out and going all over the place. It worked okay for us tonight, so we will keep our fingers cross.

As always, it is difficult to feel to sad for ourselves when we consider the plight of our friends around us. One of our little friends shaved her beautiful red hair off on Monday before it all fell out. I'm looking forward to seeing her in her blonde wig - though she may not bother wearing it to the hospital as bald heads don't really stand out. Another young bloke kissed his AFL dreams goodbye with some serious arm and leg surgery that will take years to recover from. We learnt today that 3 young teenagers lost their battles in the lead up to christmas. And unfortunately, there seems to be a fairly large number of new faces in the waiting room. Our plight is so very, very relative.

On a brighter note, one little guy who is 2 weeks older than Oliver is almost finished his treatment. It was so good to see him with some hair and colour, crawling around without a drip in tow, and to see his mum looking noticeably relaxed - as relaxed as you can get in her shoes anyway. We only pray that he has a bright future that only takes him further and further away from the hospital.

After Oliver's last treatment before christmas we decided that it might help if I stayed home for a few days after the next lot, so I'm not working until Monday again. I know, what a life.

Here's a video of Oliver with Louise, the music therapist.