...and some news from Steve

Hi everyone,

So dad has managed to encourage yet another of the children to add a little news, so here goes. As mentioned in some of the other blogs, I have spent the last 4 months in England getting some practical work experience. With a little help from Mark, due to contacts through the company he works for, I got a job with a company called Reliance Precision. They specialise in design and manufacture of very high precision parts, some of the major customers being in the aerospace, military, and medical industries. I got a main project which was to design a demonstration rig to demonstrate a new standard product that the company selling. It was very rewarding having the freedom to do my own design (with help at times) and manage the project myself, but even more rewarding to see a working prototype before I left.

As well as work experience, I took the opportunity to do a bit of travelling. I visited Scotland a few times where I have an aunt, uncle and a cousin who I had not met yet. I also made a trip to Holland to see my uncles and cousins there, and of course my Oma and Opa. I made a few weekend trips to see some of the English cities. One of the weekends I visited some old neighbours from South Africa who now live in Bristol which was wonderful. I also made a very nice trip to the Isles of Scilly, which are on the South West coast of England. The higlight of this trip being snorkelling with some seals who seemed to really enjoy swimming with the humans just as much as we enjoyed swimming with them.

All in all I have had a very memorable 4 months, but I am now also very happy to be home again. I start my 4th year of university in 2 weeks. This however is not my last year as I changed my mind after 2nd year about what I wanted to study (switching from mining to mechanical engineering) so I now have to do a 5th year. I dont mind this at all, (university is fun), and my experience this summer has confirmed that I made the right decision.

..well that was easy (as you can tell by the length) so you may even hear from me again.

Steve

An Event-filled Week

On Friday Judith had another round of chemo - the two Marks (brother and boy-friend), Mom and Dad were there to keep her company. Everything went well. More tests coming up next month and a visit to the radiologist before a final decision is made on whether the follow-up treatment should be radiation or another round of chemo, but it is looking more and more like they are going to go with the chemo route - which is what we are praying for. As usual, Judith has been sleeping most of the time since coming home.

That is a marked difference from the previous night (Thursday night) when we celebrated her birthday with some presents and she was pretty hyper. It was actually her birthday on Tuesday but Thursday night was the best for getting everyone together - except Sean who had to work so he took Judith for a meal on Tuesday night. Click on the link on the left to see some photos. Sean's news is that he is planning on going back to Whistler for the winter season. He has a job lined up in one of the fine dining restaurants to start in November.

On Saturday Mark invited a number of friends to our house for a braai (barbecue.) They all seemed to have an enjoyable time and Ingrid and I enjoyed having them. Click on the link on the left for some photos.

More Good News

Judith had her 6th chemo (3b) this last Friday (11th) and everything went as planned. The oncologist had had time to review the last tests fully and make a comparison with the original tests; the results were very pleasing: the Gallium scan was completely negative and the CT scan showed that the mass between the lungs had reduced in size from 7cm to 2cm. Given that this mass did not show up at all on the Gallium scan suggests that some, at least, of what shows on the CT scan is just scar tissue.

The original treatment plan was to give 8 chemo sessions - more correctly, 4 cycles, each with an "a" and a "b" - and then decide whether to finish off the mass in the chest with radiation or a further 2 cycles of chemo. Radiation is effective because it is very targeted and the treatment duration is relatively short - a couple of weeks. The downside, clinically, is that it hugely increases the risk of breast cancer before age 40 because of the location of treatment. Radiation would be indicated if the mass did not respond sufficiently to the chemo. However, the chemo results are very pleasing so it is most likely that a further 2 cycles of chemo will be given.

Clinically this is all very good news. There is, however, a non-clinical disappointment for Judith that I will let her tell you about herself when she gets on to update the blog later in the week. Today she is on the third or "sleepiest" day of the chemo cycle with things only slighty better tomorrow. Both days are days of intravenous hydration. Life should start picking up again on Tuesday.

Other News

Some brief other family news:
Last Sunday Sean made some amazing home-made ground-beef hamburger patties for Ingrid's birthday. Today is Sean's birthday.
Ingrid has a new work cell phone so we no longer have to put up with somebody else's voicemail greeting that nobody could change and Ingrid can actually listen to her messages.
Miriam has just come back from touring Prince Edward Island - with a kayak. (When are you going to contribute to the blog, Miriam?)
Mark has just come back from a combined business/swimming/vacation trip to San Francisco where he once again spent some time with an old boyhood friend, Saul Wainwright. (When are you going to contribute to the blog, Mark?)
Stephen only has another 2 weeks before he comes back from his summer job in England. Latest adventure was a weekend in the Scilly Isles.
Terry survived a processes audit at work.

Thank you to all of you, friends and family, for your continued interest and support.

Celebrations and Hang-overs

Friday night was a very enjoyable evening. Mark and his friend, Phil, came over after work and had dinner with us and then spent the evening with Judith playing Set.

Yesterday (Saturday) evening Ingrid did not feel like cooking and, anyway, we felt like having a bit of a celebration after Judith's encouraging test results so Ingrid, Judith and I went to Al. Gonquin's, a restaurant where Judith used to work last year. It was a good idea - a nice way to have a mini celebration.

Muriel the home nurse had come in the morning on Saturday to give Judith her post-chemo injection and found that the doctor had ordered 1000 ml of IV hydration, not the half-litre of the previous 2 occasions. As this takes about 10 hours it was agreed to have it overnight so after we came back from our dinner Muriel came and set Judith up for the night. Well, it was not to be a night of rest. Between occlusions (mostly false it would seem) and failures the IV pump beeped us out of bed right through the night. I did not keep track but it would not be an exaggeration if I said this thing must have beeped us approx. 20 times. I think the longest sleep stretch was about 90 minutes. When Sandy, Muriel's nursing colleague, came to remove the IV at 8:00 this morning we all felt like we had been partying all night without the fun (Remind me to request the machine get serviced.) Sandy said that if Judith could take in a liter and a bit of liquids during the day then they could assess this evening whether it will be necessary to do another hydration tonight.

Judith has been sleeping most of the day so far (normal for the 3rd and 4th days of chemo) so we have been waking her periodically to take in some liquids. Approved liquids exclude caffeine and alcohol.

Deo Gratias

Deo gratias is a Latin phrase meaning "Thanks be to God." The results of the tests that Judith had this week left the oncologist very pleased with the progress of treatment so far. The lumps in her neck and under the arms have gone; the mass between the lungs has diminished significantly and the mood in our household has lightened considerably. To those of you who have been praying, thank you for your prayers - please don't stop now; and to every one of you, thank you for your support, kind words, emails - just for showing your interest in reading the blog. When I put the hit counter on the blog I had no idea how many of you were reading this blog on a regular basis. It is very gratifying to see so many of you showing such interest.

Comments now enabled

Some of you expressed disappointment at not being able to leave comments. I have changed the setting so that anybody can leave comments. However, they will be moderated so you will not see your comment until it is published by me or Judith, the two administrators of this blog. This is to prevent spam and comments by sicko's.