Monday 1st December 2010

Not long until Christmas - and unfortunately I'm not organised at all!
We finally have a completed kitchen and it's great. We are really happy with it all. I've finished painting the kitchen as well as the skirting boards so now I can sit back and admire it all.

Luke is going well. He has finished all his school work and no longer has me to nag him about getting his work finished. Nothing like doing a terms work of maths in a day and sitting the test!! Don't know how he did it but at least it's all done now.
His Year 12 Graduation ceremony will be on the 15th December. Hopefully he remains well and won't slip into neutropenia so that he can get to the ceremony. He will finish this cycle of chemo next Wednesday. We then see the specialist on Thursday to see how long of a break he will have before starting his last 8 week intensive chemo cycle. Hopefully they will give him a good 3 week break and let him have Xmas off. All being well the last cycle should finish by the end of February next year. We also need to see with the specialist how the maintenance chemo works after that. We know he will need maintenance chemo for at least 2 years and each cycles runs for 12 weeks however we don't know how much of a gap between cycles he gets.
Likewise we will need to see if he is going to have a bone marrow biopsy at the end of this cycle to see if he is still in remission. So at the moment Luke is tracking well and apart from not having a great deal of energy and feeling "off" somedays, this cycle is going without incident (other than his initial hives which seem to have settled down - he has been taking anti-histamines.

Amy decided she wanted to get a job to get some money to buy all the clothes that she keeps "needing". She started her first shift at Donut King at the Tuggeranong Hyperdome. She was a bit anxious at first, especially about the uniform that really isn't that flattering. However when I picked her up last night she had a big smile and enjoyed herself. So it will be good for her to have her own money coming in.

Murray's Mum, Ann, had her 70th birthday party last Saturday. A great night was had by all. I've attached a photo of Ann and Ross with all the grandkids.

Hopefully I'll update in a few weeks before Xmas, about the graduation and what the specialist has said.