Friday 29th October 2010

Luke is officially an adult! He turned 18 yesterday.
It's hard to imagine where the years have gone to but as I keep telling him, he'll always be my baby boy. It's been a tough year for him so it was nice to be able to celebrate his 18th with family and friends. As we knew chemo was starting around his birthday we decided to have his party last Saturday. He had a fabulous time. The first party was a lunchtime/afternoon BBQ with family. The second followed straight afterwards at 5pm, 15 boys + 1 girl (she’s one of the boy’s) came over for an X-Box LAN party. We had 4 TV’s set up in the lounge and family room and they were connected to a switchboard that allowed them to all verse each other. The party ended up around 2.30am so they all had a great time.

We went and saw the specialist on Wednesday and he was confident enough that Luke's blood test results are all going well that he said Luke did not have to have a bone marrow biopsy. We have been put under the care of Dr James D'Rozario now as Dipti has been off for a few months now. It would seem that she is not well herself so hopefully all is okay with her.
Unfortunately Luke started chemo today and we ended up having 9 hours at the hospital!! Not much fun on your birthday!! I took a cake in for the nurses so that they could have afternoon tea and sing Happy Birthday to him. As we didn’t leave the hospital till 6.30pm, Murray and Amy came into Woden and we had dinner out.
Luke is on an Interim Maintenance II cycle for 8 weeks. We are hoping like the last maintenance cycle that this one won't be too bad on him.

Murray and I can't believe that our 5 weeks leave is almost up. We need to go back to work for a holiday. The flooring seemed to take forever and has been hard work but so worthwhile. The kitchen looks great. The finishing touches by the electrician and kitchen company are being completed today. That will then just leave me to do the painting of the new skirting boards around the new flooring and the kitchen ceiling. I’ve already painted the family room and a new front door. Shame I’m already sick of the painting because there is still quite a bit to do. I’ve decided to slowly paint through on my days off rather than bust a boiler trying to get it done in the next few days. I'll post a photo of the kitchen once it's all finished.

We did get up to Sydney a few weekends ago. It was good to get away but quite tiring for everyone - Luke especially due to all the walking.
The boys really enjoyed the Motor show and Luke filled the memory card on the camera full of car photos! Amy and I really enjoyed Fame. We had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant around Darling Harbour then headed back to the apartment. The next day Amy and I shopped while the boys went to the movies.

Luke is still trying to do some schoolwork as he feels up to it. He's under the pump to try and get some assessment items completed in the next few weeks. Hopefully I'll update the blog in a few weeks.