Monday 10 October, 2011

I've been very slack with doing the blog. Sorry.
As I mentioned last month, Luke's liver function tests have been really high again and his chemo was put on hold. He ended up having an ultrasound on his abdomen to make sure his liver and other organs were all okay. They were, so that was a relief. Luke was put on hold from having chemo for 3 weeks and after blood tests showed his liver function tests on the way down he recommenced chemo on Thursday 29th September. However the doctors decided that as Luke's liver doesn't appear to be coping with the toxicity they would drop Luke's Mercaptopurine to 33% of the full dose. So now he is on 50mg per day. He is having weekly blood tests to see how the levels go, and if all is okay in 4 weeks he will recommence a full dose of methotrexate. His liver function test levels are still a little high but better than they have been, so we'll wait and see what happens in a few more weeks time. He has still been having his monthly intravenous injection of Vincristine and taking steroids throughout the cycle.

Luke had a busy few weeks of university, with lots of assignments due all at once along with a group presentation. He managed to get through it all and had a mid semester break this week, however he still had work at DAFF. We've been lucky in Canberra as we've had 2 x long weekends in a row. So Luke has had lots of sleep ins.

Murray is currently between jobs. He left ActewAGL, who he has been with for nearly 15 years. It was a big step to take after so long, however he felt it was time to move on. He will join the Australian Public Service and work for AirServices Australia as a Senior Procurement Specialist. He starts tomorrow, 11th October, so I hope he enjoys it and it's all that he wants. He's had a week holiday between jobs, however it hasn't been much of a holiday for him as he has worked his butt off. I'll tell you why now....

Mum & Dad are moving into a 2 bedroom plus study villa (independant living) in the Goodwin Retirement Village at Monash. It came down to me sitting them down and saying they had 3 options as I saw it:
1) Stay where they were and fix a few things up and get a full time gardener, as they are on a corner block and it is far too large for them to maintain
2) Move to a townhouse with a smaller garden
3) Look at the retirement village which is literally a few minutes from where they currently live.

I went with them to inspect the retirement village and they loved it. The villas are brand new and they could pick the villa they wanted off the plan as they are currently under construction. There is a fantastic clubhouse with a cafe, theatre, billiards room, crafts room, gym and lots of activities run by the village including day trips. Everyone was so friendly and came up to us saying "are you thinking of moving in"... when we said yes,they replied, "it was the best thing they ever did and they wished they had done it years ago". So they came home and started picking out a villa and now it's full steam ahead. Originally they were told the villa would be ready to move into in late Jan/early Feb, however we have just been told it could be mid December. So it's all hands on deck to get their house ready to be sold. Hence why Murray did not get to have a week holiday as he has been working really hard doing all sorts of fix it jobs. I've also spent every spare minute over there painting and cleaning. Amy has also been a great helper with painting outside, and Luke helped move computers and set them up in another room. Poor Mum and Dad are having to downsize dramatically!! Talk about a lot of stuff that needs to go!
We are hoping that once the building inspection (residential report) is completed next Monday that we can get the house on the market by the end of October, early November. So it has been a busy couple of weeks for everyone, and will remain so for the next few months. I really think this is going to be the best thing for Mum & Dad as they will be in a great community of people, with a lot of social interaction and won't have to worry about maintaining a house and large garden.

That's all our news for now. I'll update next month.