A social whirl and "the importance of talc"

A whole month to catch up on.  Wow. 

After Alex’s chemo and blood transfusion, he was ready to head off on our road trip.  We left on Easter Sunday and drove south.  We had been invited to Kerry and David’s wedding to be held on their farm at Redhill, in the Mornington Peninsula area of Victoria.  On the way we made the most of our trip and called in to see several friends during the 5 days it took us to meander down.

Whilst in Melbourne, we had to visit the Ponyfish Bar on the Yarra.  This bar was on a barge under one of the bridges and was proving popular at all times of the day and night.  I've included a couple of snaps of some of the menu ...

and a good location to catch up on whirlywirds  .  or snap a variety of playful images of the Yarra

The wedding itself was wonderful and we all had a great time.  Alex looked totally at home on Kerry and David's farm

 We spent a few days driving back to Sydney.  We arrived back feeling like we had been away for longer than we had.  On our next hospital appointment on Friday 12th, Alex had put ON weight so that was excellent news.

Towards the end of our road trip, Alex was getting short of breath, and so it was decided to bring forward the date of his next scan to Monday 15^th April.  We had a busy weekend culminating in Erika’s 21^st party on the Sunday night which went off really well and everyone had a good time.

The next morning we fronted up early for Alex’s CT scan.  After the scan, we met up with Barbara, Rachel and Daniel at our favourite cafe, Little Treasures, in Petersham.  Barbara had driven up from Adelaide for Erika’s party.  Whilst there, we had a call from the hospital and they asked us to return immediately.

The scan had shown that problems with Alex’s lung had been causing his discomfort.  There were three problems, the first of which were some clots that the scan had detected.  The remedy for this is a daily injection of Clexane, a low molecular weight heparin used to prevent and treat any blood clots forming within the blood vessels.  So we now have another item to add to the daily colourful spreadsheets of “Alex’s lollies”.  At least we don’t have to go to hospital to have the injection, which is good news.

The next two problems meant that Alex had to be re-admitted into RPA on Tuesday 16^th April.  The next day, he was given another successful blood transfusion and then his lung was drained.  The fluid had built up, and this was causing a lot of his discomfort.  The doctors wanted to see if this was successful and thankfully it was.  So on Friday 19^th April Alex was wheeled off to surgery to have a keyhole procedure called a Pleurodesis, or a Pleural Effusion. 

My explanation of this amazing procedure is that in order to stop fluids entering the lung, the doctors needed to “glue” Alex’s lung to his chest wall.  They do this by lining both his lung and his chest wall with talc.  The lung and the chest wall become irritated by the coating of talc and to stop being irritated, they glue themselves together.  We thought this was amazing, and we did wonder how this procedure was discovered ...  Because they were able to do this via keyhole surgery, they inserted a decent sized plastic tube and “blew” the talc in.

Alex recovered extremely well from this procedure and was able to return home late on Monday 22^nd. 

We celebrated the start of May with a check-up back at hospital and Alex had regained most of the weight he’d lost from his week as a patient.  We also discussed with Dr. Kao the different chemo treatments now available.  Alex had not been responding well to the latest rounds of chemo and we have started on a new regime of daily chemo tablets.  So our spreadsheet has had it’s second addition with the new evening tablets, but the huge plus side of this is that we don’t have to spend the best part of a day at hospital any more while the chemo is being administered every 3 weeks.  There are always silver linings!

The next day however we were back at hospital for another blood transfusion and also a dose of Zometa.  This is to help the fracture in Alex’s neck heal and it seems to be doing an excellent job.  It was also an opportunity for Alex to catch up on a movie or two while the doses were dripping slowly in.

So with a “tiger in his tank” again, Alex was ready to face a huge social weekend.  On the Thursday night, 2^nd May, we went to the State Theatre to see Ahn Do’s show ‘The Happiest Refugee’ which was excellent.  The day after, we flew down to Adelaide for Alex’s nephew’s 21^st party that was held on the Saturday night.  On Sunday afternoon we flew back to Sydney and Alex was able to celebrate the fact that he had been cleared by all the doctors to fly again and we now know it is possible, with a few tweaks here and there.

The rest of May has been a social whirl.  OK, we have spent a lot of time at the office as well.  It’s a busy time work-wise – so busy that we have not had much opportunity to scout around for new coffee shop locations.  Rest assured, we have been back to see Craig at Little Treasures in Petersham and we have promised ourselves to find a spare night to try out their new Tapas evening menu.

So the gap in the blog can be put down to being busy with work – AS WELL AS several hospital visits and a whole week in hospital.  Add to that TWO 21^st parties, several nights when friends have come around for dinner, a trip back to Bathurst, an engagement party

 and a wedding, trips to Victoria and Adelaide ...  phew, life continues to be an adventure!