Cycle 2, Day 2

👦Realised I forgot to post yesterday - mainly because Joshua and I spent the most of the evening playing on the Xbox 👦

Yesterday and today have both gone pretty smoothly. We spent most of yesterday at Level 5C (which is the Oncology Day unit) before being transferred up to 11B (the oncology ward). We missed dinner, but were able to order three meals for Josh from the short order menu (he still has the munchies)...

We had a pretty good night, and then were woken at 7:00 to be told that we needed to get down to 5C again for Joshua's 'double intrathecal'. This is basically chemo delivered through a lumbar puncture directly into his spinal fluid. Joshua quite enjoys general anaesthetic now - he says it makes him feel peaceful. When I arrived to see him after he woke up he said, "Do we get to keep the pony when we move back to the farm?" This was his idea of a joke...(This follows an incident shortly after his original surgery where he woke up suddenly from a very deep sleep and had a morphine-assisted completely unintelligible conversation with me. I foolishly confessed to him later on that this stressed me out...)

Anyway, he seems to be responding well to the treatment (at least, he hasn't suffered any obvious side effects - although this is very early days). The current discussion topic is whether to cut his hair short now, or just let it fall out as it will. Our inclination is to cut it short (mainly for housekeeping purposes) whereas Joshua is more inclined to it fall out patchily because he thinks it will be more entertaining that way...

We are settling a bit into the routine (although are aware that the routine is unlikely to remain very long before it changes). Libby and I are taking turn and turn about at the hospital and with the other kids. It is nice to have the vehicle (and nicer to have found some free parking 👦) We also benefit from a transit minibus that runs four times a day between our accommodation and the hospital.

Our main dilemma is still keeping Ruben entertained. He frequently complains that he wants to go back to 'his world'. (In Ruben-speak a world is anywhere you have to go by aeroplane - e.g. 'granny's world'). There is not much that works for his age group, so we are going to have to work out some kind of daily/weekly routine so he doesn't spend the next 3-4 months jumping from screen to screen. Please pray for wisdom for us in this.

A friend (of a friend) has kindly set up a meal train for us, for those who want to support us in this way. Please see https://mealtrain.com/m749o3.

Thanks for your continuing prayers and support.

(By the way, Joshua is feeling a lot better flu-wise - I think that is God at work, considering how rubbish he was feeling on Tuesday).