Day 20 - Delayed Intensification

Firstly, a big thank you to Terence, Sharon, Sharlaine, Johan de Beer, Allison, Gail Meekings, Vanessa and Cyril Howell and Sue Mitchell for sponsoring me for Funrazor. You are making a big difference! Please continue to spread the word to all the people in your address book, we need as many people as possible to participate. Every little bit counts and will help the Child Cancer Foundation reach their goal. This will help children like Bianca and so many others in their fight against cancer. So next week, Thursday 6 December I will get all my hair shaved off and I need you to sponsor me. Click here to sponsor me.

Bianca really wants to go fishing and Sally from the Child Cancer Foundation gave us a number to call of one for their contacts and maybe we are able to give Bianca a fishing experience next weekend. In the meantime, Terence made Bianca a fishing rod and attached a magnet to it and so she was practicing (thank you Amanda for the suggestion!)

Bianca's counts were high enough so we managed to take her to the World Festival of Magic Show. This was hosted by Lions International and sponsored by a variety of organisations. We were kindly invited by the Child Cancer Foundation who included us when they allocated the available tickets. It was really cool and some of the illusions were really really good and mind-boggling. A BIG thank you to all involved for making this possible for us. Richard and his daughter and her friend came along too.

Unfortunately Bianca is still on Dexamethasone and as a result one moment she is excited about something, the next down in the dumps, sad and grumpy.

So this morning she was quite excited about the magic show, but when we got there, wasn't much in the mood and ended up sleeping through most of the time we were there. Shortly after the break she insisted we leave. I think she felt a bit overwhelmed with all the people and the loud noise. We saw Amy there (Amy was one of Bianca's best friends when she was still going to daycare), but it has been such a long time since Amy and Bianca saw each other that Bianca was completely withdrawn and shy when she saw Amy.

Today made me realise once again how very much things have changed for all of us. Right now I'm just so missing the old Bianca, all happy and giggling. I am hoping Bianca starts feeling much better soon, tomorrow is the last day of Dexamethasone for this phase, so I'm feeling pretty relieved.

Today was also Terence's shaving ceremony. Since Movember is now officially over, it was time for the mo to go. He can do this again next year, but until then, I'm not really a big fan of the mo...

Before...
During...After...
So this afternoon, Terence went to help out with fundraising for the Child Cancer Foundation. They collected money at the Wellington Phoenix vs LA Galaxy (featuring David Beckham) soccer game. Terence was offered a ticket and so he ended up watching the game as well. Official attendance figures were 31,853 - for New Zealand this is huge. LA Galaxy won 4-1. Although Terence doesn't know soccer that well, he had fun nonetheless. A BIG thank you to the person who gave Terence the ticket and thank you to Bob from Child Cancer Foundation who organised this for Terence.

Caitlyn is really busy, but she is at a fun stage now. She is quite good at pulling herself into a standing position now providing she has something to hold on to like the couch or Bianca's plastic table. This afternoon she practiced holding on to the plastic table and then let go of one hand. She is also crawling pretty fast nowadays. No more sitting still for us...

Medicines today:

• Dexamethasone - 3.5 tablets in the morning, 4 tablets at night
• Omeprazole - 1 capsule a day
• Cefaclor - 12 ml, 3 times a day for four days, whereafter 6 ml at night every night
• Fluconozole - 10 ml at night