Sunday, August 26, 2012

No More Green Slips.

For the last 10 months, trips to Brisbane for chemo have been relatively straight forward. We go, we see the Oncologist, we get a green slip, we leave.

Well...

We went.

We saw the Oncologist.

We left.

No green slip.

What does that mean?

The green slip is the 'we need to see you again so we will book an appointment in X weeks'.

Nicola has finished her chemo...

There is no appointment to see her again.

And to be honest, the next person that says to me "Oh, you must be so happy to be at this point!" is going to get smacked in the face with the full wrath of a Mumma who hurts like you couldn't believe!

I posted on a facebook group last week that Nicola was facing her last chemo session and I wasn't quite sure how to feel about it... and so many people told me how relieved I must feel, and how I must be so glad to be getting back to normal...

And all it did was make me feel worse than you could possibly believe.

There is no 'back to normal' for us. There is no sense of relief... there is no happiness, there is no celebration or jubiulation. There is nothing, except an overwhelming feeling of hurt.

We have come so far...

We have so far still to go.

We know this was her last chemo session...

We also know that she is not cured. She is not NED (No Evidence of Disease) and she is not in remission. We know that she WILL relapse. We know that when she does, there is very little we can do...

And all of this was confirmed last week when we saw her oncologist for her last chemo appointment.

"You knew from the beginning that the very best we could do was to buy time. From here on out, that time is going to come at a cost."

Those were the words of her Oncologist.

Words that, from here on out, have been forever slammed into my heart.

It's not that this is anything we didn't already know... just, more that we had it confirmed. There was no ambiguity, no uncertainty, no hesitation... just simple facts.

The chemo has not worked as expected.

The radiation has not worked as expected.

She still has a very large tumor in her pelvis.

She still has stage 4 metastasis in her lungs.

Her pain levels are not going to get better.

Her pain levels will probably get worse.

There is a suspicion she is already starting to show progression of disease.

Second line treatment MAY buy us time, but at a heavy price.

Quality of life will decrease as pain increases and second line treatment will make that worse.

From our perspective, it is simple.

From here on out, we focus on quality of life. We focus on her happiness. We do what we can to ensure that she is happy and comfortable.

We focus on making our memories and making the most of every moment we have left.

The simple fact is... from now on...

Every moment is precious.


Monday, August 20, 2012

Another Three...


Wow... we have so much happening here at the moment. Things are just so insanely busy!

Today is Monday... I have one big girl sick... one big girl dealing with a busted lip and the remnants of a concussion... one baby girl teething...

And one precious princess gearing up for her last chemo session.

We fly down Thursday morning and we get to sit down and have some rather frank discussions with her doctors about where we go from here and time frames etc.

We fly home Friday, get off the plane and swing straight back into reality with one gymnastics lesson and one impromptu dancing lesson.

Saturday morning we have a birthday party for a cousin, a Highland dancing competition, and my Dad's 60th birthday party. Sunday we have a date planned to drive down to some special markets in Home Hill with a friend... and then next week is equally insane...

But... more importantly... we have some incredible planning to finish...

See....

There is another three in our lives.

Three weeks.

What happens in three weeks???

Well...


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The most precious little Princess is headed to the Happiest Place on Earth!

Our flights are booked and our hotel is arranged. Our Park passes have been purchased and are sitting securely in a safe place!

It feels so surreal... it is something that meant so much to us, but that we never thought we would be able to achieve... it became our ray of hope, our beacon, our light at the end of the tunnel... a tunnel that seemed impossibly long.

There were many many days that we never thought we would get there... and if it wasn't for some very incredibly special people we wouldn't have!

But... three weeks from today we will be winging our way across to 'the other side of the world'!

I feel so completely overwhelmed at the thought of it all, yet so very, very excited that we are going to get this experience, that we get to share it together with all of our children, while we have all of our children.

The next three weeks are going to pass in a flash and there is still so much to organise. Packing, medical paperwork, all the other bits and pieces that we need to finalise...

But it is happening, it is really, really happening...

Another dream is coming true!!!!