The political connection

At lunchtime today I spoke with Federal Leader of the Opposition, Mr Paul Martin. It was a very gratifying and memorable experience for me to be able to provide the former Prime Minister with input on dumping, relief and cleaning up his act. It happened in the lobby of our building in Markam. He and two associates, who I did not recognise though probably should have, were coming towards me as I was going to buy some lunch. They stopped me as we were passing and asked me for directions to a washroom. I was able to oblige ;-o)

The weekend that was

Around 8:00 pm Friday evening (23rd) Ingrid discovered that our basement - which is also our TV room - was flooded. Our water heater had given up the ghost. We spent most of the weekend cleaning up so that we could watch Holland play Portugal in the World Cup. Mark brought his girlfriend Luisa. With a name like Luisa guess who she was supporting. After that fiasco we then watched a recording of the rugby international between South Africa and France. All I can say is that I hope next weekend is better than this one was.

Here is a link to some family pictures illustrating haircuts and hair-do's, past and present. I have also added it to the links on the left in case the one below does not work.
Haircuts and Hairdo's

Over the next hump

Nobody said it was going to be easy. Monday Judith went in to school for English in preparation for her final exam the next day; came home early. That night, while I was on the edge of my seat with the excitement, she fell asleep on the couch watching the Oilers lose their last of seven games against the Hurricanes. Tuesday she wrote English and came home wiped out. Wednesday she wrote the first of her Math exams - and came home wiped out. Thursday I could see she was getting stronger again and the nausea was gone. She has her final Math exam on Friday and then off to celebrate the end of school with her friends - probably go to a movie. She has definitely decided to postpone going to university for a year.

I am putting on a couple of pictures with her latest new look. She has observed that people notice it more when she goes around with her head uncovered so she has taken to wearing a bandana for the moment.

Three days after the second treatment

Second chemo was on Friday and went without a hitch. So far relatively uneventful. Uneventful is good :-)

The home-care nurse came round to the house later on Friday and then again on Saturday to give an injection of some very powerful muti extracted from bone-marrow designed to stimulate regeneration of white blood cells. Another nurse came on Sunday to set up a hydration drip which will be repeated later today.

I must say that I am very impressed with the quality of home-care nursing provided by the Province of Ontario as experienced by us. Family doctors making house-calls may be a thing of the past (though Schneir Levine might still be visiting his patients) but this is an excellent alternative.

Judith decided to crop her hair radically shorter - first to a 5 on my beard trimmer on Friday, and then to a 2 last night when she saw how she is losing the hair where her head rests on her pillow. I joined her with the 5 on Friday and then went to a dinner organised by our church. I was surprised how many people looked right through me without recognising me. On the up side I did have a number of ladies who found they could not resist stroking the top of my head!

New look

My selection of photos did not meet with the approval of all concerned so expect to see some changes in what you see when you follow the photo links in the next couple of days :-)

Meanwhile, Judith has had her hair cut by Dan the hair man who positively refused to take payment for the job. Here is a picture of her new look.

Backtracking

Last week we went to Sunnybrook Hospital for the radiation consult. The hospital is about 50km from our house and the centre where Judith will get radiation treatment if neccessary. It is a most daunting place- almost like a village with numerous buildings- probably 10 times the size of JHB General Hospital if not bigger. The cancer centre there has it's own building and fortunately we had some directions on how to get there otherwise we would have parked in the wrong parking lot and been tired out and late for the appointment.

We realised that the radiation is still being debated. At some point Judith needs another Gallium scan and CT scan and her response to the chemo will then be assessed as well as a decision made on whether chemo is to be extended or radiation to be started. We heard that for females under 30 there is an increased risk of breast cancer before age 40 and with Judith's mass in her chest they want to be sure that they do not treat these sensitive areas unneccessarily. We appreciate the expertise of these doctors and their commitment and we are so grateful that we have access to such good care.

After that day Judith started thinking seriously about deferring her studies for a year and I must say that I am greatly relieved that we are now talking about this because I could not imagine her being anywhere else but home at this stage.

The build up to Prom was exciting. Miriam, Mark and Sean were all at home for the afternoon helping out with makeup and photographs. Judith was so excited ( read: a little hyper) Her boyfriend Mark at times looked somewhat bewildered and at other times bemused but most of the time calm and unflappable- a good balance for Judith. When they eventually left, Terry and I went out for dinner- a beer and wings at the local pub.

You heard about the hair. She had a stunning haircut this afternoon (on the house) done by Dan who is our local hairdresser.

OK that's it from me.
Ingrid

... and thanks again

... to all of you well-wishers and those who were praying for Judith. The Prom was a great success, as was the "pre-Prom" and "post-Prom". Dan the hair-dresser had done a terrific job on Judith's hair. The timing was really tight; Judith reports that clumps of hair were coming out in the shower last night. Today is chemo session #2.

If you want to see pictures of the Athletic Banquet or Prom, use the links on the left.

Some of you have asked what happened to the diary of events giving the history of the initial diagnosis. Click on the May archive link on the left.

Thank you

The last two days have been pretty good. Nausea under control. This evening Judith went off to the school Athletic Banquet in good spirits. It is now 22:15, she still has not come home, so thank you for answered prayer.

The big one comes tomorrow with The Prom.!

A Prayer Request

Oops! Nearly forgot.

I'm aware that we have friends of various religious and spiritual persuasions, and some with none. To those of you who do pray, there are two things Judith would really like to be well enough to do this week...

1. Athletic Banquet on Thursday night. This is for all the sports men and women who have represented the school on the playing field or court in the last year. Judith has played both field hockey and rugby for Dr Denison.
2. Prom. on Friday night. For South Africans this is equivalent to the Matric Dance.
   

A trip to the emergency ward

Monday was not nice. I arrived home from work to take a conference call at 16:30 and found Judith severely nauseous and dehydrated with a splitting headache. She had done everything right in terms of taking the anti-N but it just was not working. By that time the cancer clinic was closed for the day so she phoned the ward. They told us to come in to Emergency which we did. Judith was put in the Triage ward where we waited for the doctor. Eventually she was put on a drip and had some blood works done pending the doctor examining her. And then we waited, and waited, and waited some more.

In all fairness Emerge. was like a madhouse with the number of people who came in and Judith had been stabilized and isolated so she was no longer an emergency. But she did still have her headache and every so often would try hurling the imaginary contents of her stomach into the plastic bag we had brought from home as she did not trust being able to hit the kidney dish that the hospital provided.

I should mention that, in the Triage ward, each cubicle has its own TV suspended from the ceiling so eventually we turned it on and watched a woman win $10 000 on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Then we watched the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals, but nothing was going our way as the Edmonton Oilers went down to the Hurricanes 4-5 after being up 3-0.

During the second period (somewhere around 21:30) Judith fell into a good sleep and when the period ended I went to phone Sean to let him know why we had not come home yet. Ingrid had asked me to buy some chocolate from the vending machine as we still had not eaten anything. When I got back Judith was still fast asleep so Ingrid and I very quietly started to open a KitKat. It worked better than an alarm clock as W-W immediately woke up with a "WOTS THAT!?" Guilt-ridden for daring to eat in front of her when she could not, we had to promise that we would not eat any if she fell asleep again :-(

During the third period of the game The Doctor arrived. He looked at the blood works and reassured us that the nausea was not due to morning sickness. He ordered an anti-N intra-venous to be hooked up with the second drip that Judith was on, chatted a bit, reassured her that she had done everything right (we all agreed that life sometimes was just not fair), switched the TV back on so we could watch the Oilers give up 2 more goals, and then he was gone. Judith commented that we had waited five-and-a-half hours for what she had wanted to tell the nurses to do in the first place!

We finally arrived back at home shortly before midnight - Judith still not able to keep anything down but at least hydrated.

There's much to tell you about today (Tuesday) but that will have to wait. Suffice to say that Judith was up to writing a test at school, have a light breakfast and lunch, and a good dinner of fish that Sean made. In fact, by the end of the day Judith looked better than I was feeling!

Sunday Summary

We have got through week 1 and are all feeling very encouraged. Judith had some ups and downs but the system here allows us 24 hour access to information and support and we have used it. On Thursday morning Judith called the Cancer Clinic with some of her concerns and got immediate answers and suggestions. It made a huge difference to her and our anxiety. They have told us to expect a similar reaction with regards to nausea after the other treatments ( so that is good because she only really had 2 bad days) but that the tiredness will increase as time goes on. It is difficult to see her so wiped out, she is always so active and energetic.

Next week we are going for the radiation consult so that will give us some more to think about. In fact next week is going to be rather busy. Judith has the school Athletic Banquet on Thursday, her Prom on Friday and is then going with a group (probably 2 busses) from school to Wasaga Beach - the longest fresh water beach in the world- on Georgian Bay (Lake Huron) for the rest of the weekend. So on Friday I have taken the day off to enjoy it with her, take her to her hair appointment, Miriam is doing her make up and we'll all take photographs... after all she is the last one in the family to have her high school dance and finish school.

We'll keep you posted and hopefully create an album of this momentus occasion.

Ingrid

Bulletin #6603/1

Things were definitely a lot better yesterday (Friday) than on Thursday. Judith is experimenting a bit with the time for taking her anti-N muti* and so far the new way is working well. Yesterday morning she took her muti 40 minutes before get-up time. This, combined with moving something else (not related to the Hodgkins) to the evening made it possible for Judith to have a decent breakfast and go off to school and enjoy "Dr Denison Day" - a day of shortened lessons and fun competitive activities - that Judith only watched but enjoyed nevertheless.

Last night she was up to going to the drive-in movie with her boyfriend. All went well.

This morning she repeated the trick with the anti-N and so far it is working well.

*anti-N = anti-nausea
muti = medicine (umuthi in Zulu)

Wonder Woman

Today was definitely a rather difficult day. Judith decided that she was not up to going to school. Without going into too much detail, that turned out to have been a wise decision. With my car in for a service it turned out well that I was working from home anyway. The main challenges were nausea and tiredness, and a general listlessness that is very uncharacteristic of Judith but so characteristic of the treatment.

Things picked up during the afternoon after another dose of anti-nausea muti (medicine) kicked in and then life really brightened up when Judith opened a gift from one of Mark's friends: a Wonder-Woman shirt that she had spotted while shopping and, for some reason, made her think of Judith. As I type, W-W is waxing her legs!