Wednesday 30th June 2010

Well it's been pretty quiet on the home front. Luke's blood levels have remained stable and he hasn't been neutropenic yet, which is a good thing. He is currently on an interim maintenance chemo which seems to be a lot kinder to him. He's certainly been making the most of being able to get out of the house. We've been to the movies a few times. The other weekend, Murray and Luke saw the A-Team while Amy and I went to Shrek 3D. Both movies were good. Then this weekend Luke ditched us to go with his friends to see Toy Story 3 (Murray, Amy and I went to a different session). What a great movie - very funny in places. Luke has also been over to friends places several nights, playing X-Box,a boardgame - Risk, and Poker. Mind you his latest escapade saw him walking in the door at 2am!! He tells me they lost track of time as they were so engrossed in the X-Box tournament they were playing and got a shock when they saw how late it was. I guess when you're 17 and some of your friends are 18, I have to let the strings loose sometime!! He'd just better not do that too often as I laid awake tossing and turning, waiting for the door to open - not good when you have to wake up a few hours later to go to work. Murray naturally heard nothing!!

Luke managed to hand in the assessment item requirements for college for the semester. So at least he has caught up with 3 of his 5 subjects. He didn't manage to get IT Programming done or Maths. He is hoping to catch up with these over the next 3 week break that the college has and into next term.

We are heading into the hospital this afternoon for a big day of chemo. He has 2 drugs via the central line (one of these takes about 2 hours to go through). Then he has a lumbar puncture under x-ray with chemo injected into his spine. This is booked for 4pm so it could be a late evening, as depending on the doctor or nurse you speak to he should lie on his back for 2 to 4 hours after the procedure.

It's Dad's birthday today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY. As chemo will finish so late today we won't be able to go out for dinner. Luke and I are going over for lunch before heading into the hospital. We'll have to do something for Dad on the weekend.

Luke has another injection on Friday followed by a week's break then chemo via the central line on the 10th July. This will then end the current chemo cycle and he'll have a few weeks break before having a bone marrow biopsy. So I probably won't have much to tell in the next few weeks.

The next round of chemo will probably start up again at the beginning of August (dates still to be confirmed). This cycle goes back to the start with a reinduction and reconsolidation phase for 8 weeks. These cycles are very intense so he'll probably be not so good during that period.
I'll be in touch when I next have any news.