Thursday 31st July - Friday 8th August 2008

Nothing has been posted since our release from UCH as it has been a quiet, non-eventful week, but at the request of Rose and Charlotte, we have updated you all on Sarah's progress here!!
We were allowed home Thursday 31st July at 8pm - the chemo seemed to go on for ages - the start was delayed because of the fire in the Rosenheim building the previous week, so the end was delayed too!! Sarah had been given different medicine for her sickness and it seemed to have worked a treat! Although she had felt sick since Wednesday, she wasn't actually sick at all.
She was desperate to go home, so was really pleased to be let out eventually! Friday was OK, still no sickness, and we even managed a trip to Pets at Home to buy more fish for Sarah's fish tank!! In the evening, Sarah went to Pizza Express for her friend Georgia's birthday party, so she had a lovely time catching up with all her friends and showing off her new leg.
At the weekend, we just chilled out at home.
I managed to do 2 and a half days at work this week, so adult conversation was good to have for a change!! Sarah's non-use of her leg is proving a challenge for me and my back! Everywhere she goes, I have to go too, and everywhere I go, she has to go too!! Trips to the loo on her crutches are hilarious, with Sarah yelling at me to lift her leg, then its too high, then its too low etc....... The Fentanol lollipops are working well, which she has to suck while she is doing her physio with me as a pain killer- this involves me lifting her thigh to bend her knee, and her shouting at me for either holding it wrong, or doing it too much!! She can now bend her knee to about 45-50 degrees when she is cooperating. Still waiting for the community physio to make contact so she can do it instead of me, but we are doing OK.
Monday we had a trip to Sarahs swimming club to say hello to all her friends there - it was nice to catch up with everyone there and update them on her progress.
Wednesday brought the one and only sickness episode, but once it was out, Sarah felt good again and continued to eat her pizza for tea!!
The nurse came Thursday to take blood and in between Sarah playing Brain Training on her DS, she even managed a few grunts in acknowledgement of her being there!! Glad some normality has arrived in our household!! Tonight, Katie and Sarah are having a DVD watching marathon with popcorn and coke, so I expect to be woken in the night with crys of 'I don't feel very well' but we will see!! Managed to get my hair cut today, and am having a massage, manicure and pedicure tomorrow morning, as a present from the hockey team I managed last year, so a pampering day is on the cards - I can then sit and watch the olympics all day too!! I've forgotten what it is like to relax!! It appears that since Sarahs operation, she seems to be much healthier - more cheerful, not as sick, and much more up beat about everything - histology came back on the tumour as a good response (more than 95% dead when removed) so I wonder if the fact that there is nothing in her body to make her feel ill any more is having a positive effect(?). Exactly half way through treatment now (worst half is over), so light is visible at the end of this tunnel we are trapped in. Still 3 and a half cycles to go, but doesn't seem to be nearly as daunting as the first 2 and a half! We wait with baited breath to see if she goes neutropenic over the weekend, but not having been in our local hospital before, we are hoping to avoid it again this time!