Shake rattle & pill

I've modified the blog to include the Lymphoma green, I hope you like it. (You can see I have time on my hands!!)

Well day one is over - all 26.75 hours - chemo finished at 2:45am today!!  Thanks to H & K for their prior post - most entertaining and informative.

I thought I'd write a little about the first day that has been...
Hospital starts are early (for me) - 5:15 for obs (pulse, BP, temp, wallet) 5:30 Weight
Between then and 7:45, I was able to doze and only get woken for drug intake on two occasions.
Strangely at 7:40 I did think to myself  "I should be driving to work now....." None of that for a while.
Tony the doctor visits any time after 7:30, and we have chats about wetsuits, wetsuit glue (you can't get the old black glue easily anymore) oh and about me and the treatments.
After that the nurses plug me in, make me drink lots, test my wee, and do regular obs during the day. Within reason I can go for a stroll around the building, but I am attached to Baxter, who has a 5 wheel trolley which does not travel well over the raised bumps near crossings and some surfaces at all.  After that it's day time tv with adverts for buy now funeral plans! and repeats, I have some DVD's, books and keeping you guys informed.

Here is Dan testing my wee - note he really does have to wear the Daffy duck suit!! 

I reckon he's been watching too many Bear Grylls shows.

Alan



(Ok before the flood of comments - it's not really wee, because that would not be safety conscious - fun piccie though, thanks for the idea Dan)

Seconds out, Round one!

Ladies and Gentleman if you can please take your seats, the
least-anticipated fight of the year has just begun. In the red corner we have
Larry the lumpy lymphoma. In the lime-green corner we have Baxter & Alan –
the tag team. The crowd goes wild when they see Baxter & Alan, its obvious
who the favourites are in this battle! Ding ding ding!! The battle has begun. There
is not much movement from Larry; he’s already delivered one big fat blow to the
head in the last battle. Now he’s out of moves, but the tag team has stepped up
to the machine. Baxter is feeding into Alan trying to get Larry to forfeit his
fight against him. Only time will tell to see who will come out on top.

Did you catch all of that? I would assume a bit of explaining is in
order, unless you’ve visited Greenslopes in the last 24 hours! First off, why
lime green? In Australia the lime green ribbon is the colour for Lymphoma, naturally the colour suits us well.
Secondly, we’d like to introduce to you Baxter. We haven’t quite worked
out if Baxter is our friend or not. Baxter is the machine feeding the chemo
into Dads body – friend or foe? In the near future we think foe, but at the end
of the day, he is just trying to be our friend! :)

Baxter

FINALLY FOR SOME NEWS! Thank you for following the blog thus far, the
update you have been waiting for has finally arrived. There are two main grades
of Lymphoma – high grade and low grade. Due to true Mellon form – we don’t
follow the crowd, so naturally, Dad has middle grade Lymphoma. With the low
grade cancer the chemo treatment would have been more of a social time for Dad,
coming into hospital for the day, getting the chemo and being discharged at
night.
Unfortunately with the mid range the chemo is slightly more vigorous,
meaning that the chemo will be being fed in over a number of days. The repercussion
of the chemo is that dad’s immune system will be almost abolished. So for at
least the next couple of weeks 31-14 will be his new home. He will be closely monitored
to ensure that he will not be picking up any diseases or infections etc.

Delightful Donna in her Daffy Duck outfit with the first Chemo and Lei Lei to her right.

The hardest part of it all of course is that if Dad is to come home our
house will have to be spotless – the hardest challenge we have faced yet! (Just
kidding Mum) Thanks for all your support so far, I’m sure you will be hearing
from us soon!
Hayley & Kyle :)