Bernadette

Well I had treatment 1 today. I am staying in hospital overnight tonight to dose up on fluids and hopefully feel a little better. I feel pretty revolting right now but that will pass in a few days. I spoke with Dr Taylor and he said that I will have a CT scan in a fortnight and then he will assess from that whether I need anymore treatments. I am really hoping this is it as I really dont want to have to go through this anymore. I am totally and completely over it. If in two weeks I get told the chemo is all over then I can start to try to relactate and start to breastfeed Arielle again. There is a possibility my pituitary glands have been damaged and I may not be able to produce enough milk to fully breastfeed but I would like to try. Jane currently expresses enough milk for Arielle’s day feeds and Arielle loves the breastmilk. I am very lucky to have such a wonderful friend.  

Arielle had a hernia operation today. She had an inguinal hernia – this is a small opening in the abdominal wall where something has fallen through. For Arielle it was her right ovary and fallopian tube that came through. She also had a small hernia starting on her left side. Had she gone full term this problem would most likely have corrected itself within the womb however once the baby is born it does not fix itself. As the opening tends to close up and strangulate the hernia it had to be operated on immediately to save her ovary and protect her from severe infection (it would go gangrene had the opening closed). It happens in about 2.5% of premmie baby girls (25% of premmie baby boys). She had the surgery this morning and has been asleep for most of the day. She is staying in hospital overnight (I am with her) and should be released tomorrow morning. Her only problem at the moment is that she is having little episodes where she is forgetting to breathe and/or holding her breathe. She only went blue one time and hopefully it should settle within 24 hours. She is not feeding that well but again that is to be expected. Apparently there is not much pain afterwards and they often either don’t need any painkillers or just Panadol for 24 hours.

As you can see from the pictures the house renovation is coming along really well. The expected completion date looks like it might be pushed back to February unfortunately. The roof and framing is finished and now they are working on the inside. As you can see from the photo of Tiernan he loves being a little helper (the Bosch tool is a toy one by the way!!).

My white cell count has got back to normal after my daily injections and thankfully I can stop them today. So all going well chemo no 12 should be going ahead on Tuesday.

My sister Natalie arrived on Saturday and it has been just wonderful to have her back home. It has been a tough year for our family this year - a few weeks ago dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer and now with Arielle having to have her operation you begin to wonder how many bad things can happen to us in a year! Dad’s prognosis is good - he will have an operation to remove the cancer and the doctor is confident that will remove all of the cancer. He will take about 2 months to recover but at least at the end of it the cancer will be gone.

After the luck (or lack of) we have had this year we will be very glad to see the end of 2006 and the start of a fresh new year!

I hope everyone else is well and hopefully one day we will be able to make it to mum’s group! 

Well chemo number 11 finally happened on Monday. I had chemo in the morning and then had to stay until Wednesday morning. I had heaps of fluids pumped through me and felt much better than last time. I still feel worse than I did whilst pregnant however nowhere near as bad as it was after cycle 10. They kept me in for 2 days as my neutrophils and white cell count dropped dramatically after chemo. By the time I left on Wednesday I had become mildly neutropenic. As the levels tend to decline until day 10 it was decided to start me on daily injections to increase my neutrophils as they could not safely go much lower than I was without risking infection and a trip back to hospital (and most likely a long stay). So Cameron has the daily task of giving me my injections - I still have a needle phobia so it is not fun. Hopefully cycle 12 will go ahead in a fortnight and then hopefully the tests after that will be good and I wont have to have anymore (there’s dreaming!!)

Well on Friday I managed to get myself out of hospital - so chemo had been delayed all week. I have a sinus infection but it does not look like anything sinister so I was allowed home. Hopefully chemo will be going ahead tomorrow – fingers crossed.

Arielle was weighed last Wednesday and she was 2.5kg. Her weight gain is fantastic and far exceeds expectations! She is going to be a chubby bubby in no time at all!! Although she is growing she is still quite tiny as you can see in the photo of Arielle and dad. She continues to do really well at home and is still a little dream baby. She is well settled in a routine now of 4 hourly feeds overnight and 3 hourly feeds during the day. For most feeds she is having 20mls to 60mls more than she has to which is really great. Other than to let us know she is awake and ready for a feed she rarely cries. Even when she does cry for a feed she stops once you walk in the room and is quite happy to go through the normal routine for a feed preparation without crying. Tiernan still loves her to bits and is still a very proud big brother. He loves to nurse her and thinks that burping her is especially funny.

Unfortunately I have landed myself back in hospital. Last week I ended up with a slight throat infection and was put on some heavy duty antibiotics (as I was neutropenic (depleted immune system) they were being extra precautious). That has kept at bay however on Sunday I developed an infection in my caesar wound (suprising as it has nearly been 6 weeks since the caesar). My neutrophils had started to rise however they are back on their way down again and my blood pressure has dropped and remained low, so I am on two types of antibiotic by drip (to combat the infection), high volumes of IV fluids (to get my blood pressure back up) and injections to get my neutrophils and white cell count up - fun stuff!! I have gone back to being a woss about injections as well which isn’t good considering all of this!! So chemo is off for today and won’t be back on again until all of the infections clear and my white cell count improves which they are suspecting should be later this week or early next! Just to complicate life a little more, Tiernan has a tummy bug so I cannot see him and we need to try to keep him away from Arielle as she is still a little fragile. So Arielle is going to join me in hospital for a day or two until Tiernan is better. I am missing both children heaps so at least having Arielle here should make me happier too!! And it means Tiernan gets some one on one time with Cam so he should like that too.