Round Two: 1 down, 3 to go

On Thursday Judith played field hockey with the school team in a local pre-season round-robin with a number of other schools. Judith and her team mates did very well, drawing one game and winning all the others.

On Friday Judith started her second round of chemo. This is the round where they were not sure whether to do a second round of chemo, or radiation. Eventually they left it up to Judith to decide after presenting her with some nasty facts associated with each. She opted for the chemo - another four sessions - and we had the first of these on Friday.

During the days leading up to Friday she had more tests: CT Scan, Gallium Scan and a chest x-ray. The Gallium was still negative and the size of the mass on the CT Scan was unchanged. As before, they are still not sure if that is the mass that is lingering, or scar tissue. We are hoping and praying and trusting that it is the latter, especially since the Gallium is negative.

Chemo sessions are never very pleasant at the best of times but this one was particularly unpleasant. To begin with it started late. Usually Ingrid takes Judith in the morning for her bloodworks and appointment with the oncologist, after which the nursing staff start the chemo if the oncologist gives the go-ahead based on the bloodworks. I generally get there around 1:00pm and Ingrid leaves to finish her work hours or to do other things if she has completed her hours for the week. (Today it was to make Pavlova for Miriam's birthday.) When I got to the hospital at 1:10 yesterday (Friday) they had just inserted the intravenous (IV) line but had not put up the drips yet. It was going to be a long day...

On the positive side for Judith, it was a holiday for students (PA Day - when teachers have professional formation,) so her boyfriend Mark was able to be there to give her moral support. Around 3:30pm Judith started to feel cold; nothing too unusual, so she was given a warm blanket. Then she started to shiver - and then shiver violently - so much so that she could not drink a glass of water without spilling. In the space of five minutes her temparature went from 38.4 C to 39.7 C. Apparently developing somewhat of a fever is not too uncommon with one of the drugs that she is being given, but this was decidely disconcerting and it did mean interrupting the infusion until the shivering and temperature were brought under control. Sometime after 4:30pm a decidedly groggy Judith was able to leave the hospital with Mark and me.

Judith was determined that this was not going to stop her spending a couple of hours helping Miriam celebrate her 30th birthday with the whole family in attendance - even Stephen who had bussed in from Kingston for the single night occasion. We had to finish the evening early anyway as we had to take Mark (McCann) to the airport to attend a tradeshow in Frankfurt. (Wie gut sprechen Sie Deutsch, Mark?) Naturally Mark will be spending a day in Holland visiting "the cousins".

Tomorrow, Sunday, if previous experience can be relied upon, will be sleeping and IV hydration.

Thank you to all of you who are so faithful in reading this blog, and for your prayers and concern for Judith.

Some random things to share...

I had some pumpkin pie shortly before going to bed - and woke up with indigestion. So I thought I would be constructive and after taking some bicarb. do a photo album of some pictures that Judith took of her guinea pigs a few weeks ago. That's Cowslick in front, Skitch is the grey one looking distrustfully at the camara. You can see the whole album of 10 pics if you click on the Guinea Pigs link on the left.

After school on Friday Mark (The Boyfriend) kissed Judith hello when he met her in the parking lot. OK, maybe it was more than hello... Anyway, some grade 11 girl yelled out to two friends right next to her - from the other side of the parking lot - "O-my-gosh-there-are-two-boys-kissing-over-there!" Judith, Sean, Ingrid and I were able to laugh about it over some buffalo wings in a local pub this evening, but it was not very funny for either Judith or Mark at the time. It reminded us of the time, a few weeks ago, when Ingrid and Judith were in the waiting room of the ophthalmologist. An elderly couple walked in and sat down. The lady stared and stared at Judith and her bald head. Eventually she asked Ingrid, "Is it a boy or a girl?" Her husband took her in hand and informed her in no uncertain terms that "it" was a girl while the only other patient, a woman, sat rolling her eyes around the ceiling...

Friday morning I received an email from a very old friend who I learnt was on holiday in Sherbrooke, Quebec. Minutes later we were talking on the phone. I have not seen him since around 1970 or before. I am now making plans to rearrange my vacation to go out there and spend a couple of days with him. Pourriez-vous perler plus lentement s'il vous plait?

On the two occasions I have been to Quebec I have found that, with the help of a phrase book, I can actually make myself understood in French. The real problem comes after you have asked for your ice-cream/coffee/whatever when you get asked whether you want the grande, petite, plus petite, rouge, blanc, bleu, doux, aigre, chaud, froid, etc. and you do not have a clue as to what you have just been asked or even whether it was a question and maybe you have just been told it is all finished!

Chemo versus Radiation

This past week started with the last public holiday for the summer (Labour Day). Judith started school on Tuesday and managed to get all her courses for this year sorted out. She also started field hockey! Yeah! Stephen has gone back to Kingston and the rest of us back to work.

On Thursday we had our appointment with Dr. Doherty at Sunnybrook Hospital to discuss with her how the next stage of treatment is going to be managed. She had a good look at the initial and then subsequent Gallium and CT scans and confirmed for us that Judith's cancer is "chemo sensitive" meaning that it is responding well to the treatment. She spent a long time with us explaining the different risks involved in choosing one route or the other and then it was basically up to Judith to decide what to do. The short explanation is: with chemo alone, the chances of a relapse are slightly higher; shorter chemo followed by radiation has the increased risk of breast cancer at a later stage especially in females under age 30 - the reason for this is that with radiation they hit the areas that are affected by the cancer which in Judith's case are close to the breast.

On Friday she had her 4B chemo and a good discussion with Dr. Zibdawi, the chief oncologist here at Southlake Hospital. Judith had already decided that increased chemo without the radiation was the preferred route and our discussion with him confirmed that. He spent a good deal of time explaining what would happen should she have a relapse - in the end it is important that you are able to make an informed decision.

A relapse involves extra chemo, harvesting of one's own stem cells, followed by high dose chemo which means a few weeks in hospital and then receiving your own stem cells back again.

A bit later, while Judith was receiving her chemo, a young man came in who is now starting this procedure and it was good speaking to him. Although he gave a very sombre description of the process, he himself was very upbeat about his prospects.

The rest of this weekend has gone well. We are back to school and work tomorrow. Other news is that Sean has a job at Milestones which he is really happy about.

Love from all of us.
Ingrid.

...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.