Wednesday 24th February 2010

We are all very excited - especially Luke - he is home!!
It will be so nice for him to wander around the house and do things by himself.
Driving home he commented how bright it was - he really hasn't been in sunlight for over four weeks (other than two visits to the courtyard). It's also nice to get fresh air!

Luke is in a good place at the moment - he looks quite well even though he has lost heaps of weight and is quite pale and certainly bruises easily. He slept on his side last night and has two bruised knees where they obviously rubbed.

His next chemo treatment is on Monday for a lumbar puncture. Luke has been released home as an In-patient service of the hospital operated by the Oncology Outreach Service (OOS).Part of being allowed home is that he requires 24 hour care from us and an oncology registered nurse will be coming for a home visit daily at this stage. We need to take Luke to the hospital for scheduled treatments such as the lumbar puncture/bone marrow biopsy and any chemo treatments in the future that cannot be administered in the home.

We found out today that Luke will have his bone marrow biopsy on the 11th March.
As I said before, we really won't know how this round of chemo has gone until the results come back from the biopsy.
Luke currently is not neutropenic so we don't have to be strict with his diet although we will continue to be cautious as his levels fluctuate so quickly.

He has said he is happy to have visitors now that we are home however it might be best to give us a quick call at home 62946172 to confirm that he's okay at the time.

I mentioned Luke was craving a Saigon Roll so when we were discharged at 1pm he made us drive to Tuggeranong to get one for him. I must say I was extremely lucky to get one as when I arrived in the queue (2 people in front of me) the lady making the food started waving at me saying they had sold out. As I started to turn in disappointment the lady in the queue in front of me declared that she didn't have enough money on her and that I could have the last roll. I couldn't believe my luck. Luke would have killed me if I turned up to the car without one!!!

For the record his blood levels are:
23/2 Haemaglobin 109 / White Cell Count 2.6 / Platelets 299 / Neutrophils 1.5
24/2 Haemaglobin 106 / White Cell Count 2.1 / Platelets 252 / Neutrophils 1.29

Leaving the hospital today, although exciting, was a bit scary as we have been armed with a bag full of Luke's drugs with a time schedule of when he needs them. I'm also concerned that most days Luke seemed to have some other sort of drug to counteract something that was wrong with his blood levels. I have been assured that when the nurse takes Luke's blood for the day we will receive a phone call that afternoon with his levels and they will tell us if we need to take him in to get any treatments such as cyroprecipitate or protein fixers etc.
I can't believe how much "stuff" we had at hospital that needed coming home. I took about 4 full bags home yesterday and we ended up with just as many today along with pillows and balloons!
I'm looking forward to our first night at home together again.