Good morning, Jack!
A whole night without fevers and without a drip!! No IV fluids meant no multiple wees during the night (no sheet changes) and no beeping machine. No fevers meant no nurses coming in to check every hour and no beeping monitor on your toe. It meant... SLEEP for both of us! But will it also mean we're going home today??? Too bad the doctors only come around in the afternoon on the weekend so if we do get discharged, it will only be in the late afternoon. And the doctors who cover for other doctors on the weekend tend not to 'take any chances', so we'll still have to see...
Love
Mum
Sunday 17 June 2012
Saturday 16 June 2012
Sigh...
Sigh... we're still here, hey Jackyboy... Twelve days in isolation...
Oma has gone back to Belgium. We've hardly seen her while she was here. She was looking after the girls all by herself during the last week of her stay and even managed to make Maya sleep through the night.
In the meantime your temperature keeps going up and down like a yoyo. Prof. marshall says you're going to be here for a few more weeks. I've got the feeling though that you're out of the woods and we're going to be out of here by tomorrow afternoon. Let's see who'll be right, Prof or mum. In any case, if we manage to get out of here tomorrow, it won't be for long because the new round of Ara C injections starts on Monday and it's very likely that we'll find ourselves at Emergency with a fever on Monday night.
You're doing very well, buddy.
Mum
Oma has gone back to Belgium. We've hardly seen her while she was here. She was looking after the girls all by herself during the last week of her stay and even managed to make Maya sleep through the night.
In the meantime your temperature keeps going up and down like a yoyo. Prof. marshall says you're going to be here for a few more weeks. I've got the feeling though that you're out of the woods and we're going to be out of here by tomorrow afternoon. Let's see who'll be right, Prof or mum. In any case, if we manage to get out of here tomorrow, it won't be for long because the new round of Ara C injections starts on Monday and it's very likely that we'll find ourselves at Emergency with a fever on Monday night.
You're doing very well, buddy.
Mum
 |
| A present from the Como West staff: a 3DS |
 |
| Finally together again after two weeks! |
 |
| Peek-a-boo, Maya! |
 |
| Three little monkeys |
 |
| The smelly clown |
Friday 8 June 2012
In isolation
Hi Jackypants
Fifth day in hospital and you're getting extremely bored... You were moved into an isolation room because you've got the flu. The good thing about it is that we have a very large room (with bathroom!) to ourselves. The bad thing is that you can't leave your room to go to the Starlight Express Room.
We made a tyrannosaurus yesterday morning and I drew a big one on the whiteboard (following your very specific instructions). Then we played a few games on dad's iPad, watched some TV and just lay around. The Starlight Express Room gave us two boxes of Lego. This morning, Captain Starlight came to your room to show you some magic tricks. He made you a giant magic wand from balloons.
Because you didn't like your lunch yesterday, I ran to Coles to get you a frozen pizza and garlic bread. I tried to sneak into the kitchen of another ward as there is no oven on C3West. Hum, that didn't go according to plan... The oven started smoking so everyone got very worried about smoke alarms going off, which would have triggered a charge-out from the fire brigade and a $1,000 bill to the hospital. I spent 15 minutes in the kitchen - under the hovering eyes of several nurses - trying to cool the oven without making more smoke. So much for sneaking in...
Luckily, there was some action of a different kind in the afternoon: a surprise visit from Stirling and two video calls: first with Ben, Ella, Emily, Molly, William and Sarah, and then with James, Emily and Kate. That was a lot of fun!
Oma is at home with Emily and Maya. I hope the girls aren't giving her a hard time because both of them can be a hand full sometimes. It's a good thing oma has lots of energy and can juggle a million things.We don't know what we'd do without her.
SuperJack's Sidekicks, a group of mums from Como West, have been working very hard on a Facebook and MyCause page for you. They'll go live today, which is super exciting!
You're having a very big sleep at the moment. I bet you don't even know I went out to the shops to get you some dinosaur tattoos!
Big kiss
Mum
Fifth day in hospital and you're getting extremely bored... You were moved into an isolation room because you've got the flu. The good thing about it is that we have a very large room (with bathroom!) to ourselves. The bad thing is that you can't leave your room to go to the Starlight Express Room.
We made a tyrannosaurus yesterday morning and I drew a big one on the whiteboard (following your very specific instructions). Then we played a few games on dad's iPad, watched some TV and just lay around. The Starlight Express Room gave us two boxes of Lego. This morning, Captain Starlight came to your room to show you some magic tricks. He made you a giant magic wand from balloons.
Because you didn't like your lunch yesterday, I ran to Coles to get you a frozen pizza and garlic bread. I tried to sneak into the kitchen of another ward as there is no oven on C3West. Hum, that didn't go according to plan... The oven started smoking so everyone got very worried about smoke alarms going off, which would have triggered a charge-out from the fire brigade and a $1,000 bill to the hospital. I spent 15 minutes in the kitchen - under the hovering eyes of several nurses - trying to cool the oven without making more smoke. So much for sneaking in...
Luckily, there was some action of a different kind in the afternoon: a surprise visit from Stirling and two video calls: first with Ben, Ella, Emily, Molly, William and Sarah, and then with James, Emily and Kate. That was a lot of fun!
Oma is at home with Emily and Maya. I hope the girls aren't giving her a hard time because both of them can be a hand full sometimes. It's a good thing oma has lots of energy and can juggle a million things.We don't know what we'd do without her.
SuperJack's Sidekicks, a group of mums from Como West, have been working very hard on a Facebook and MyCause page for you. They'll go live today, which is super exciting!
You're having a very big sleep at the moment. I bet you don't even know I went out to the shops to get you some dinosaur tattoos!
Big kiss
Mum
Tuesday 5 June 2012
A surprise holiday
Dear Jack
A surprise holiday on C2West today... Just as we were ready to leave the hospital after a whole day of chemo (no further hospital bookings for the rest of the week, woohoo!), they took your temperature as part of the discharge procedure... and that's where the plans changed... Your temperature was 38C so you were immediately admitted to hospital for a 48-hour stay with intravenous antibiotics. And of course, this morning I took the overnight bag out of the car to put some bigger clothes in for you, so we're here without any clothes, toothbrushes, pyjamas... And to make matters worse, I forgot my wallet at home so I can't buy anything. The $60 Aunty Ky lend me this morning have gone mostly to medication so I've got about $10 left for the night. Thank goodness your appetite has gone down since you've stopped taking the steroids!
Even though your fever is a side effect from the chemo you got today and all patients develop a fever after getting this particular drug, they have to treat every rise in temperature as suspicious and give antibiotics as a precaution. They take blood cultures and watch them for 48 hours -- if there are no signs of infection, you can come off the antibiotics and go home. Very frustrating! This is the second time you've been put on antibiotics where the fever was clearly a side effect from medication, but they're adamant they can't take any chances.
You will be getting this same chemo 4 days per week for the next month, so I think we'd better prepare for a month in hospital.
It's all good though; earlier tonight, when we snuggled up against each other in the hospital bed and you had your arm wrapped around me, you said "Mum, this is one of the best nights of my life"! Well Jack, if that's true, it is for me too.
Love
Mum
A surprise holiday on C2West today... Just as we were ready to leave the hospital after a whole day of chemo (no further hospital bookings for the rest of the week, woohoo!), they took your temperature as part of the discharge procedure... and that's where the plans changed... Your temperature was 38C so you were immediately admitted to hospital for a 48-hour stay with intravenous antibiotics. And of course, this morning I took the overnight bag out of the car to put some bigger clothes in for you, so we're here without any clothes, toothbrushes, pyjamas... And to make matters worse, I forgot my wallet at home so I can't buy anything. The $60 Aunty Ky lend me this morning have gone mostly to medication so I've got about $10 left for the night. Thank goodness your appetite has gone down since you've stopped taking the steroids!
Even though your fever is a side effect from the chemo you got today and all patients develop a fever after getting this particular drug, they have to treat every rise in temperature as suspicious and give antibiotics as a precaution. They take blood cultures and watch them for 48 hours -- if there are no signs of infection, you can come off the antibiotics and go home. Very frustrating! This is the second time you've been put on antibiotics where the fever was clearly a side effect from medication, but they're adamant they can't take any chances.
You will be getting this same chemo 4 days per week for the next month, so I think we'd better prepare for a month in hospital.
It's all good though; earlier tonight, when we snuggled up against each other in the hospital bed and you had your arm wrapped around me, you said "Mum, this is one of the best nights of my life"! Well Jack, if that's true, it is for me too.
Love
Mum
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)