End of reception

Tomorrow is the last day that Catherine will be in Reception - next term she will be in 'Year 1'. She is very excited but is going to miss her two teachers. In the morning we have been summoned to the award ceremony and it has been hinted at that Catherine may be getting an award! I have a feeling it may be for her dancing, but it certainly wont be for her attendance at school this year!!! Next year, she will be off treatment which is great as she will not miss half as much school. However, we will secretly miss 'hospital days' as it gave us a wierd sort of 'quality time' with our little girl.

Catherine is doing well on her treatment. She had chemotherapy in her spinal fluid this week and her back is still a bit sore from the lumbar puncture, but otherwise she is ok. I can't believe how energetic she is whilst still on chemo - her consultant said it will only increase when her treatment finishes! How will I cope??

Smiling Catherine!

Catherine has started to pick up! We don't know her neutrophil count yet but we do know that this afternoon she was starting to smile and giggle again! It helps that she is now no longer on her steriod medicine. The steroid really effects her mood and appetite - she has been craving toast with Philadelphia for days!

Catherine also got her school report today and she was very excited to hear how well she had done. She is looking forward to going back to school now which means she is well and truly on the mend. When she felt poorly, all she wanted was to snuggle up with me on the sofa or go to bed.

Thanks so much for all your prayers. We are now hoping that Catherine will be back at school next week as long as her immune system has recovered. We will find this out from a blood test on Monday.

Good news and weird news

Catherine came home this afternoon! Her temperature is down and she has completed the course of antibiotics.

We have a bit of a weird situation though. When they analysed Cath's bloods, they found that her neutrophils had not come back up - they are still 0.01. However, her overall white cell count was 4.1. The doctors say this it is rare for this to happen during treatment but not unheard of, and not to panic yet. As a precaution, they also checked her blood to make sure there were no 'naughty blood cells'. There were none there, but it is still a bit of an odd situation to have a reasonable white count (by treatment standards) and no immunity.

We need her neutrophil count to come back up as soon as possible. Please pray that her bone marrow continues to produce a healthy abundance of neutrophils.

Cath is feeling much better in herself but can't go back to school until she has a neutrophil count of at least 0.5

Improvements

Catherine's temperature has now come down but she is still receiving intravenous antibiotics in hospital. There was a small sign of a possible infection on her chest xray, but nothing to be too concerned about. They think it may well be viral but they are giving the antibiotics anyway just in case. Mark and Catherine are both still in isolation. Today Mark counted that there were 14 plug sockets in the room and 46 ceiling tiles. Thanks for praying.

0.02 neutrophils!

Cath is in hospital tonight with her daddy. She has some sort of infection and we will hopefully find out more soon. She has 0.02 neutrophils which is the lowest immune system she has had. Please pray that it is easily treatable with antibiotics and that she will soon be well.

Low neutrophils

Catherine has been doing well recently but is currently going through a period of low immune system which means she is getting various aches and pains. She has a tummy upset and gets odd pains in her ears that come and go. When we saw the ENT specialist, she said that Catherine didn't have any hearing problems apart from a very very slight loss of hearing on the lower levels. We were surprised to learn that this was not from the chemo but from the recurring ear infections she has had since her birth. But the ENT specialist gave us some spray to use in her ears if she starts to get another ear infection, so we have that on hand if necessary.

We are still on track to finish chemo in October and Catherine's consultant says she is doing extremely well. Praise God!