Home again

Joshua came home from hospital yesterday having finished his 3rd round of chemo. He had a lumbar puncture in the morning, then they disconnected his chemo, heparin locked his lines and we were free to go. Quite strange for Joshua leaving hospital after 7 days, most of it spent in one room. His lumbar puncture went well and he woke up quickly from the anaesthetic, unlike last time. The only hitch was that Daniel had his phone on silent so didn't get the call to say Joshua was in recovery. In the event, they just wheeled him back to his room with the nurse. He was quite relaxed about it all, I think he is so used to general anaesthetics that he doesn't need a parent there when he wakes up. Now we have some recovery days and then on the 16th October Joshua has a PET scan. (google it, if you want the details) This is quite a big deal as it is a full body scan to check whether there is any cancer left. The consultant seems quite optimistic that it will be gone. If that's the case, Joshua will just need one more round of chemo, his central line removed and we should be able to go home. Of course he will have a lot of check ups and will probably need to come to Brisbane once a month for the next year and at increasing intervals after that. If the PET scan is not clear, there will be more rounds of chemo and a new plan. Please pray that it will be! 

Whatever the outcome, we have decided that I will fly back to Cairns with the other 3 kids on the 19th October. This is so that Bethany can go to her Informal (like a prom), that she has been looking forward to all year, and so that the kids can have a few weeks back at school before it finishes at the end of November. Daniel will stay in Brisbane with Joshua for now and if necessary the rest of us can always come back again at a later date.

For those of you who are interested, bloods as of yesterday were:

Hb: 110

P: 352

Wcc:4

N: 3.39

Yesterday was day 7. The results normally keep dropping until around day 14 when they start to recover again.The good news is that 24 hours off the chemo, Joshua's appetite is starting to come back, so the feeding program can commence again. We have a few kilos to put on before the next weigh in on Tuesday!