One Big Fat Juicy R Word !

Remission. Rémission. Ремиссия. Remisión. 용서. Vergeving. Ri-mish-uhn. Ree-miss-hion. Remission.

The same word written so that everyone from the 10 different countries that visit this blog can understand. It’s meaning? Remission - the state of absence of disease activity in patients with a chronic illness, either temporary or permanent. Remission – the outcome of 8 long, gruelling months of chemotherapy. Remission – the fantastic news for my amazing Dad, Alan. The statistics say that this blog has had 7,968 views, a sign that we were never alone on this journey, so thanks to each and every one of you. Lets go back to just after the last blog post to bring you up to date.

As was mentioned in the previous post, Dad managed to get an infection followed by a virus, which landed him back in the emergency department for another week in hospital. He was allowed out once his bloods had been given the all clear and was told strictly to stay home until his blood count had risen even further. Unfortunately, even after following these precautions, he spiked another temperature and it was back to the emergency room again for he and Mum. He stayed in for two nights and was given the all clear after seeing the infection doctor. Since then there have been no more spontaneous visits to accident and emergency for Dad, woohoo!

June 25^th was the day scheduled for the PET scan, which would be a full body, colour scan of the body which would highlight any remaining cancerous cells and determine if remission had been achieved. The scan went ahead all fine and it was just the one week wait before seeing the oncologist to determine the outcome. The week passed gruellingly slow for dad, who wasn’t really sure what to expect. July 3^rd came around eventually, the big day and the appointment with Tony the oncologist. Mum had her positive thoughts flowing round the house and Dad tried to keep the appointment from his mind, to avoid going stir crazy!

After a couple of gruelling minutes while Tony observed the scan results and Mum tried to read his facial expressions he finally gave the verdict. Remission. As you can imagine, the relief was beyond belief for Dad, who felt like asking the assistant to weigh him again so she could see how much weight had been lifted from his shoulders! The appointment then followed with some heavy discussion as to where to head next. Currently, there is not enough research completed as to what the best move is to take to prolong the remission. The next few weeks will see Mum, Dad, Tony and possibly some other oncologists for further opinion to decide if a stem cell transplant will be completed. The transplant involves one more batch of chemotherapy to completely wipe the immune system, before injecting the previously harvested stem cells, to trick the bone marrow into forgetting the disease. The process takes around three weeks, of which most will be spent in hospital, due to the risk that comes with having no white blood cells! For now, no decision has been made, but much research and medical advice will determine what the next step will involve. For today though, a celebratory lunch, Guinness and cake for a well deserving man!

I personally would like to thank everyone for the amazing support we have received so far and I am sure the continued support through the future. To everyone from St. Martins school who have cooked up some delicious dinners when we were struggling for time, thank you so very much, both myself and my stomach are so very thankful! J To everyone else who have helped out in so many ways, we really do thank you! We could not have coped how well we did without your thoughtfulness and caring wishes! And of course, thank you to each and every nurse, doctor and staff member at Greenslopes, particularly Tony, for helping to save my Dads life. You rock.

These thank you messages are not the end, just long overdue on my behalf, so thank you! I’m sure Dad will do his own update for this blog, since I am stealing his thunder on the best blog post yet to reach you!

Lots of love,

Hayley!