Schools out!

It's that strange time of year again in Australia (at least for those of us who went to school in the northern hemisphere) where we are heading into the summer holidays and the Christmas holidays simultaneously. If you've been conditioned into feeling that these are two separate holidays it feels very odd when they merge. Clearly it's not wrong, it's just different, but there's a lot to get through when you have to celebrate the end of the school year and Christmas things at the same time.

Joshua returned to school on Friday for the last day of term. He is quite bemused as to why, when he is fine, everybody keeps asking how he is feeling. There is now a two month summer/Christmas holiday before school starts again at the end of January - happy days!!!!

An uneventful week medically. We got the dates of Joshua's next five scans at the hospital and a letter summarising everything he has been through.The words I liked the most were, 'complete remission', 'excellent prognosis' and 'complications nil.' Much nicer than bilateral bone marrow biopsy and intrathecal chemotherapy.

Two exciting things happened this week, or at least they were for the individuals concerned. Ruben visited the prep class where he will start next year full time. Most excitingly for him, he was given a little joey (not a real one, that would have actually been exciting and possibly illegal) wearing it's own school uniform and a book telling the story of joey's first day in prep.

Very excitingly for Joshua he took and passed his driving theory test, which enabled him to get his provisional driving license. He now has to drive for 100 hours (not all at once) before he is allowed to take his practical test. The good thing about Australia is that it is so big, if you have the time it is easy to clock up the hours. Road trip here we come! It's a 32 hour drive to Melbourne, so there and back would help the hours in the log book. I am also going to have to learn to drive properly again - sigh! I started driving an automatic in Nairobi and haven't looked back. Most of the larger cars here are automatic, so that's what we have. I'm definitely a little rusty when it comes to using the old gear stick. 

Fishing

Joshua's hospital appointment was fairly uneventful. They checked him over and told him to come back in December. It was strange to see the doctors from Lady Cilento braving the far north of the country. For one of them it was his first visit to Cairns. As far as updating on Joshua's condition, this blog will hopefully become fairly uneventful. Compared to the intensity of the last few months we are back to the humdrum of normal life, most of which is not that blog worthy. I don't think you really want to hear about my visits to the supermarket, exciting as those can be! Stone fruit and mangoes are now in season and Bunderberg soft drinks are now selling their Christmas spiced ginger beer (see, not that exciting).

People keep saying to us how pleased we must be to all be back together and again and in Cairns. Of course we are and we politely smile and agree, but to be honest it's quite odd. The last few months have been very intense and now we are back to 'normal', I'm not sure what to feel. We probably need time to process our emotions, most of which we put on hold in order to 'hold it together' during the treatment. Cancer has been our focus, now we have to remember what we did and how we spent our time before. It was only a few months, but it feels like a lifetime. Maybe we are still in shock. There is definitely a gap between the way people expect us to feel now that it's 'all over' and the way that we actually feel.

When you receive the diagnosis you are numb and in shock and then you go into survival mode. You get through one day at a time. Finishing treatment possibly is the start of the release of all those unresolved emotions and feelings there was no time for during treatment. We are now part of a club that we never expected to join - the cancer club. I guess it is just something we will have to work through!

Normal life involved fishing on Saturday afternoon/evening. Here are a few photos.

All quiet on the eastern front.

All quiet here on the east coast of Australia. Joshua has been home a week which has been fairly uneventful. Today he has an appointment at the Cairns base hospital to see the team from the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital, who have flown up here for a remote clinic. 

In theory he could go to school, but the teachers have agreed that as there are only two weeks left of school, he can do work at home that he needs to do to catch up. He may go in for one day next week to see his friends.

It was the Presentation Evening on Tuesday. I went for a short time with Joshua and Ruben just to hear Bethany sing the national anthem. Josh sat with his friends, which was really nice until I felt it was time to make a quiet exit! Imagine a semi-dark, fairly hushed room for a formal event, except I had Ruben sitting next to me huffing and puffing and saying in a not very quiet voice, "This is so boring". I whispered to him that we were going to go and needed to attract Joshua's attention, but not to shout. We managed this quite successfully until Ruben said in a very loud voice, "MUMMY SAYS WE ARE NOT TO SHOUT". Good job he can still pull off cute and people are forgiving!

What was really nice was that, in spite of his absence, Joshua was awarded one of the Grade 10 academic excellence awards based on what he had done that year already. Joshua felt he didn't really deserve it, but I was pleased.

We're Back...!!

Joshua and I returned back to Cairns at around midday on Thursday. Joshua was quite keen that it be a secret, which is why the blog has been so quiet! In the family, only Libby knew (although Bethany had a strong suspicion) so it was a nice surprise for the other two. This is Ruben's face when Libby told him...

After having his central line removed on Wednesday afternoon, Joshua was cleared to fly home on Thursday. His operation was much later than expected (around 4pm) and he had quite a lot of trouble waking up from the anaesthetic, but by the next morning, although a little sore, he was feeling well enough to come home. 

Having not been home for 3 months, he was pretty excited to be back again. The first thing he did was to go out on his bike! The most exciting thing was, 'unlimited wifi'...

It is nice to be all back together, although there is going to be some readjustment required to being all back together. It's surprising how quickly you get into little routines. It is also going to be a bit hard getting used to the things that were hard before this all kicked off. 

In some ways, being in Brisbane was a bit like being on the field. We had a simple little house, which required relatively little cleaning, no house maintenance and no garden maintenance. We didn't have much stuff, much in the way of responsibilities and nothing to do or think about other than eating and getting on with the important things. 

It is quite hard to have to come home to a house that has a white floor and needs constant cleaning, lots of grass that needs mowing and shrubs and trees that need pruning and trimming, other projects that need doing, cars that need maintaining, etc. First world problems I guess! 

Anyway, it is good to be back together - now just to get used to it again, and maybe tackle some of those life issues that have been on hold for the last 3 months. 

Thank you to everyone for their prayer and support during this adventure. 

The Bell Tolls

What a lovely sound, not the sound of the bell itself, but what it signifies. The end of cancer treatment. On Tuesday Joshua had the privilege of ringing the 'ringing out bell' and signing his name on the board to show that his treatment is finished. It's been a roller coaster of a ride, but we are so proud of how he handled the treatment and got through to the other side. Of course we are not quite done yet, and we have months if not years of scans and x-rays and blood tests to come; hair to grow back; blood levels to normalise, energy to get back, strength to return, but we have come a long way.

Do I understand why this happened? Not really. Mostly I have come to terms with this, although I have moments of still asking why this happened to Joshua. There are little griefs; like realising that he will not be able to get any academic awards next week at school, when in past years he has swept the board. Also, just having a kid that looks like a 'cancer kid'

Early on in this, God gave me a few verses for Joshua. One was in Exodus 14:4 which says, "I have planned this in order to display my glory". I have no idea how this will play out but I pray that this will be so. Later on it talks about how the Lord opened up a path for the Israelite's, so that they were able to walk through the water on dry ground. I feel that God opened up a path for Joshua and he was able to walk through his chemo treatment. Joshua's consultant said that he has never had a patient go through the chemo schedule that Joshua has gone through without any infections, transfusions or other complications. For me, that has God's hand written all over it. The final verse in Chapter 15 says, "...for I am the LORD who heals you". Amen.

For those of you who read this blog and don't have a faith, I so encourage you to investigate. I don't know what you think about it all, maybe you think it's OK for me if that's my thing or it's an emotional crutch to help me through hard times. Faith is complicated, I don't have all the answers and I certainly have a lot of questions and a lot of things I don't understand. One thing I am sure about though, is that there is God out there who loves me and cares for me. We can have sucky days, months or even years in this life, but to all of us God offers the gift of eternal life that will be beyond our wildest imaginings! Don't miss out.

Days trundle on...

Still not much of note to report. We have spent most of the week working and studying - partly school, partly driving theory. The pause button on Joshua's life got pressed in August - so time to hit 'play' again...

We were at the hospital yesterday for an appointment with the consultant, bloods and line care. Joshua's platelets have hit the lowest point so far, but his white cells and neutrophils are on the rise again. More tests and appointments next week, but for now it is still a waiting game.

We are trying to keep ourselves amused. Yesterday after our hospital visit we wandered over the Goodwill Bridge to visit the Architecture Department at Queensland University of Technology, which is likely to be one of Joshua's top picks. 840m from the hospital as the crow flies - I can't help wondering if this is not a coincidence...

We had a good time. On the ground floor the students (I assume) have built a scale model of the centre of Brisbane. We also visited the workshop where there have all the laser cutting machines for making the models. All pretty cool...

This morning we went for pancakes at the hospital. Every Saturday volunteers from the Children's Hospital Foundation have 'Pancake Saturday' in the Ronald McDonald family lounge on Level 6. I went a couple of weeks ago when we were in hospital, but I wasn't allowed to take any pancakes up to the ward. Last weekend we went to the hospital especially to get pancakes, but due to a combination of leaving late and some event at South Bank that meant there was zero parking, we missed the slot. So we tried again...and they were pretty good 👦

After that, we spent two and a half hours playing Mario Kart on the Wii  U in the Starlight Room. Joshua is trying to make up for lost time..
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(Joshua is not quite as bald as the photo would suggest - for some reason my phone can't see his hair 👦)