Monday 8th February 2010

Luke had a false start this morning and got told his lumbar puncture was going to be at 8am. The nurse soon came back and said she got it wrong and it would be in the afternoon. It turned out to be at 4pm. I'm sure I've said this before but can't remember - the reason he has lumbar punctures is to take a sample of the spinal fluid and at the same time they inject chemo to make sure there are no traces of leukaemia cells in the spinal cord that can affect the brain. I got a little concerned when the intern was having a go and couldn't seem to find the right spot. I know everyone has to start somewhere but preferably not on my boy. He tried for quite a while and the resident ended up jumping in to do the procedure.

It's good to see Luke's on the ball. A nurse that we haven't seen before brought in his medicine this morning and Luke commented that there were only 4 steroid tablets instead of 8. She went away and checked and then came back and said "good thing you checked". So he got his correct dose in the end.

Luke also had a chest x-ray today - he was told he will get one of these once a week just to make sure there is no infection.

I had to pick up Amy from school at lunchtime today. She had to come to the hospital and have some blood taken for testing that will be sent up to Sydney. The doctors want to see if Amy would be a possible stem cell transplant donor for Luke. I'm not sure how long the test results take to come back. Amy has said she will do anything for Luke to help him get better however she hates needles and said if anything goes ahead she will need to be knocked out!!

Luke has just had the dressing changed on his central line site. It's a good thing he doesn't have a hairy chest! Mind you I can still see in his face that it would be like having a wax done!

I was talking with Luke yesterday about "stuff" and said to him that he hasn't read anything about his leukaemia or asked any questions whereas I'm trying to find out everything I can. He put things into perspective for me and said "We know what I have, the doctors have told us how they are going to treat it and they know what they are doing, so we've just got to accept it and get on with it."
I think this speaks volumes about Luke's character and it gives me great confidence that he will have the strength and determination to fight this.

I just want to make special mention of Luke's old Tuggeranong cricket team. Luke played with them for 5 years and most of the team stayed together over the years. Billy and Des have passed on details of Luke's situation to his old team mates and we/Luke really appreciate the messages of support he has received.