Max and the terrible 3s

Looking at this photo the saying 'butter wouldn't melt....' springs to mind but over the past 2 weeks this could not be further from the truth. Max's tantrums have escalated and there have been days where every waking moment was  spent either crying or screaming. When he (and I) do eventually calm down I have talked to him about it and as I suspected it's about me and Celia going to hospital. Of course we might as well be going to the funfair for all he knows as he just sees me, Celia and Mabel going somewhere without him all day. There are days when I've had to take all 3 to the hospital but I find it so stressful that I try and avoid it. Mind you, I don't think it can be any more stressful than dealing with Max's constant outbursts these days so I may need to reconsider. In between the tantrums we did manage to have some nice family time. The weather was amazing last Saturday and our friends Andrea and Dan has us and a few others over for a spot of al fresco lunch which turned into dinner as  the children played outside until it got dark.

On Sunday we drove up to the Dandenong hills as one of the cancer charities was putting on a day with Puffing Billy the steam train which had been disguised as Thomas the tank engine. It was warm but very windy so Celia was not happy, however Max seemed to enjoy himself, especially as there was face painting. When we got back Andy took them out to the garden to plant some tomato and strawberry seeds. He explained how they needed to look after the plants and watch them grow but I don't think they quite understood the growth timeframe as 20 minutes later we looked out the widow to find them parked in front of their respective pots patiently waiting.....

The heat was short lived and it has been quite wintery again this week so there has been lots of DVD watching as I haven't the energy to fight it!

 We had another long day in hospital on Monday and again, it should only have been a morning visit for a blood test and chemo but we were there from 9am til 4pm. They are renovating the cancer centre over the next 3 months so it has moved to a room in A&E where there are no TVs or DVD players so time really dragged. I was moaning about this to Andy until he showed me a BBC news story about the NI Finance minister visiting the Royal Sick Children's hospital in Belfast and how some of the facilities are almost 100 years old. He was "shocked and ashamed" by the conditions he saw and although funding has been agreed for a new hospital it won't be completed until 2021 so I quickly reminded myself how very lucky we are having Celia treated here in Melbourne.    

   

Hair - coming and going!

We saw the first signs that Celia's hair is growing back this week - she is very excited and I can't stop stroking her fluffy head! Although it is hardly visible she didn't wear anything on her head today at kinder so I think it is a big psychological step forward.
Mabel on the other hand lost some hair as she had her first haircut on Wednesday. One of the UK playgroup mums was a hairdresser back home and now she does the kids hair during playgroup so that saved me a bit of time, effort and probably money as Max needed a haircut too.
  






We had chemo last Friday and I also set up a meeting with the resident psychologist as the phobias just keep coming. The latest one is Vampires. We were reading an ABC book and V for Vampire came up. Celia asked what a vampire did and I stupidly told her. She then became hysterical and kept shouting 'why did you tell me that! You know I will have nightmares now!" so we stayed up reading nice stories for another hour and eventually she went to bed but wouldn't let go of my hand and she did indeed wake up crying in the middle of the night. I think the phobias started after she had the MRI (which most 4 year olds get a general anaesthetic for but they thought Celia wouldn't need one) so I am hoping the psychologist can help.
We had an induction session at Celia's new school yesterday and she loved it so I'm feeling a lot happier about her starting in February as up until now she has been saying she didn't want to go to Blackrock primary as her kinder friends were going to other schools.

It is Mabel's first Birthday today which means this time last year I was in intensive care and 'baby kerr' was in an incubator. I have been looking back at what a truly hectic year it has been for us (well 15 months to be more precise) but light is most definitely at the end of the tunnel now.

Straight into the next phase

All Celia's blood counts were up last week so we started Interim Maintenance last Wednesday. I was very surprised that there wasn't a delay as Celia's little pal Dominic was delayed by about 8 weeks due to his neutrophil counts being so low. 
We were first on the lumbar puncture list so were at hospital for 8am. Unfortunately Celia had another anaesthetic tantrum but they didn't put her back to sleep this time (said there was no guarantee she would wake up differently) so I had to endure half an hour of howling, hitting and kicking until it wore off. Getting the chemo was another drama even though her port had been accessed under the general anaesthetic. She was just exhausted as this didn't happen until 3pm so we had been waiting around for 6 hours.   
Looking on the positive side, we have no more chemo for 10 days and her blood results yesterday were excellent.


Celia in Botanic Gardens with Uncle John

We also had a lovely two days when Andy's Aunt Gladys and Uncle John came to stay with us. They are holidaying in Australia for 3 weeks with four other couples from home and we spent a beautiful sunny Monday in the Botanic Gardens followed by a lovely meal in Brighton with the whole minibus 'crew' and Andy managed to take two days holiday (which were well earned as he has been working 60 hour weeks recently) We so need to get a few more holidays booked  - or cancelled holidays rebooked I should say.....  

Celia is in great form these days and asked to go to kinder today so we took in her special cancer beads for 'show and tell'. Every child gets a beaded journey. This gets added to every time they visit hospital with different coloured beads for every procedure. Apparently Celia was so keen to tell her friends all about it she lifted her dress up round her head to show them all her port - that must have been quite a unique show and tell!