Sunday, 19th June 2011

Wow... Luke is pretty amazing.
He got his University semester one subject results the other week and he got 3 x high distinctions and 1 x credit. I can't believe how well he did considering how disjointed the semester was for him. We are really proud of him and what he's been able to achieve.
I mentioned that Luke now had 2.5 months break from uni before semester two starts up again. His Aunty Heidi works at DAFF (Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) and she is working on a special reform project. She suggested that Luke might be able to go and work on a contract basis. So he applied through the non-ongoing register and was accepted. He has been employed full time as a APS3 Project Officer. He will be giving administrative support to everyone on the project. He started on Wed 15th and is on contract until 12th August. He was a bit concerned he'd be a bit bored however he's enjoyed his first few days. He got left in a meeting of EL2's on his 2nd day to set up the meeting and take notes throughout the meeting.
This is a great opportunity for him for quite a few reasons. It will look good on his resume, it will give him some much needed cash and independence and get him off the lounge!!! Mind you I think he's going to be exhausted working full time. He's spent most of the weekend sleeping.

Luke completed the first 3 month maintenance chemo last Sunday and went straight onto Day 1 of the new 3 month maintenance chemo cycle on Monday. He's on 2/3 of the dose of Mercaptopurine and full dose of Methotrexate this time around to see how his liver function reacts. So he's not totally at full dosage but getting there. We are waiting on his blood tests to see if all is going okay. Luke had a lumbar puncture on Friday (so unfortunately he missed Day 3 of work - which DAFF knew was going to happen). All went well.

I mentioned that we wanted to go away for holidays. I have now booked for 8 nights in Cairns in the Northern Beach area of Palm Cove. That way we are between Cairns and Port Douglas and can tour around a bit whilst staying at a nice resort. We will be leaving on the 12th August. Luke wanted to make the most of his uni break and full time work. He will miss the first week of Uni but he said no tutorials will have started then so all should be good. We are really looking forward to a nice break.

That's all our news for now.