The Whites in New Zealand: An earthquake tonight

2007-12-20

An earthquake tonight

Tonight I felt an earthquake. I was at the desk busy updating the blog and felt the desk and chair move a little bit, just very briefly. Then when I went into one of our electronic newspaper sites saw that there was magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Gisborne. You can read the article here. This is the second one I felt since we came more than 3 years ago.

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Welcome to our blog

At the beginning of June 2007, Bianca was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia or ALL for short. This was approximately 2 weeks before she turned 4. The diagnosis turned our world upside down and we were completely devastated. Not only did we have to make a lot of adjustments and changes, but we did not have the luxury of time to make those decisions, it was simply a matter of jump in and do what we needed to do.

This blog is about Bianca and her treatment as well as some of the things the family gets up to.

We are constantly amazed at the courage Bianca shows throughout the process and how she just does what she needs to without complaining. She is just a typical four year old who loves being a big sister to Caitlyn (born February 2007).

It is a bit of a bitter-sweet experience: Every day that we get through is a day that we won, it is a day closer to the final day of treatment, but it was also a day that we lost, a day where Bianca couldn’t do what she used to do or perhaps couldn’t see a friend because of her low levels.

But we made the decision that we would remain positive and that we would run this race one step at a time.

Summary of our journey - 2 Jun 07 to 11 Sep 09

1,322 Beads collected during this time
652 days of chemo (IV, sub-cut, injections into the muscle, tablets, spine)
142 Finger pricks, port accesses and injections
47 Blood Product transfusions (Red Blood, Platelets, IVIG)
43 Clinic Visits
4 NG Tube insertions
4 Times where Bianca lost her hair or it thinned significantly
20 Lumbar Punctures
73 Different tests such as x-rays, CT Scan, Ultrasound, Echo, nose swabs, etc
117 Days spent in hospital. All of these were for various infections
112 days where Bianca was isolated, had a fever or was neutropenic
1 Surgery to insert a port
1 Port insertion
16 Dressing changes
45 Days of IV Antibiotics (I probably missed some days)
4 Bone Marrow aspirates
41 Unusual things happened during treatment such as being on oxygen
Bianca developed a severe allergic reaction to one of her chemo injections
Bianca had a severe bronchospasm requiring immediate assistance
Bianca had kidney stones
Bianca had shingles 3 times
Bianca was diagnosed with panhypogammaglobulinaemia