Update

Right now Bianca and Terence are on their way to hospital.

We decided to phone Starship just to check if we can give her anything (I know onion syrup is fine, but we are not sure if we can give paracetamol or any other cold type of medicines) and they asked if we could please take her to the Emergency Department so that she can be checked out and swabs taken. I think it is more precaution than anything else because she is chirpy enough, doesn't have a fever (right now her temp is sitting around 37.5 and for us above 38 usually means admission to hospital). So we'll see what they say.

Bianca is excited though, she seems to enjoy the trips to hospital and this morning even asked when next she could go to theatre.

Edited at 11:20am - Bianca and Terence in an isolation room in ED waiting to see a doctor. Temperature currently sitting at 38.6.

Oh the joys of winter bugs

Bianca and Caitlyn both have colds - as in constant coughing, the occasional sneeze, a bit of a runny nose. Oh fun and games. To top it all I think I'm busy getting a cold too.

Yesterday Bianca complained about a bit of a headache, not sure if that is what it was or if it was as a result of her coughing. But either way I don't think she will be able to go to school tomorrow when school starts for the third term. We are hoping Bianca doesn't develop a temperature because then we'll probably be in for a hospital stay.

So I think I'm in for a few interesting and busy days as I attempt to keep Caitlyn occupied and keep Bianca busy with school-related activities.

And just for my mom - I made some onion syrup which my mom and grandmother used to make for colds and other chest-related things. I'm hoping it will do the trick really soon.

No more wishes...

I have finally found a way to get Bianca to eat properly, whatever we make for dinner, without fuss - be it peas, rice, chicken (okay chicken is a given as she seems to be craving it nowadays) and the other day she even ate some beans and broccoli. She knows that Camp Quality is happening soon and we told her she can only go if she eats properly and voila! It works like a charm, especially when I remind her I can cancel her camp booking at any time... I might be a bit mean, but hey, a mom needs to do what a mom needs to do.

Today Bianca dressed up as a fairy and then she came to me offering to grant me some wishes. So I wished for a fairy to give me a kiss and she kissed me on my cheek. I then wished for a fairy to hug me and she hugged me tight and then I wished that I could tickle a fairy's tummy and of course she ran away squealing (she is very very ticklish).

So then as she stood there all cornered I told her that I wished to tickle a fairy's tummy and that she needs to grant me my wish. She then said "you only get three wishes" and I said "well yes, I wished for a kiss, then I wished for a hug, so wishing to tickle a fairy's tummy is my third wish". She looked at me, sighed and said "no, you actually made a wish a long time ago, you wished for a beautiful girl and you got me, so no more wishes". Well, she got me there...

Will the owner of Honda YG4967 please stand up...

Dear Sir or Madam (I'm not quite sure who you are)

I would like to let you know that by putting your parking fine (you know the one you got at 1:33am on Sunday 12 July in High Street, Auckland City? You know - for parking in a loading zone?) underneath my windscreen wiper, does not mean I will be paying the $40 on your behalf.

It was a nice try though. I mean we do drive the same make of car, but did you really think I would just accept a parking ticket when I wasn't illegally parked? Did you really think I would not actually read the ticket and notice the difference in time and location? I mean you did put it under my windscreen wiper some time between 8:10pm and probably 10:00pm at Albany Mall when in fact you received the ticket at 1:33am in the city. Did you really think I would just assume it is my ticket, ignore all the details in it and pay it on your behalf? Nice try, but it's not going to happen!

Exploring the creative side of me

For a number of months now I have been thinking about things I could do once treatment ends.

One of the things I would like to do is to make some sort of photo collage kind of (dare I say art work? I'm not much of an artist though) creation that we could hang on the wall.

Yes it is easy to say "let's just get the experience behind us, forget that it was ever part of us, get back our lives", but the truth is that we will never again have the life we had before, the normal we knew before Bianca became sick. The day she was diagnosed, our lives changed forever. This journey became part of us, it shaped us in a way and I guess will determine the way forward. I don't think we will ever be able to just put it behind us and forget about it. Bianca will need checkups until she is an adult, there will always be the lookout for signs and symptoms, the worry that it may come back. Fair enough the checkups will become less frequent as we go forward, I guess we will become more at ease over time, but it will always be part of us.

And this is part of her memories, she doesn't remember a different life, this is her story, her life the past 2 years. I could never deny that it happened. She may very well have questions when she becomes older and so I will always acknowledge that it was part of us. I want to always acknowledge how incredibly brave Bianca was and is, what an amazing little girl she was and is, the inspiration she has been to us. So I want to make something we can hang on the wall. Something that will show snippets of the treatments and procedures, but then highlight the more normal things she did like going to school, playing at the park and so on, her beautiful smile. I guess that she was able to live life despite dealing with cancer. I want to incorporate the concept of her beads (not her original set though) and the total number of days we walked this journey until treatment ends.

So I have all these ideas swimming in my mind and with end of treatment date just around the corner (tomorrow exactly 62 days or if you prefer 2 months or if you rather prefer 9 weeks away - so whichever way you look at it, not that long from now). And I will start sifting through the hundreds (maybe more) photos we took since Bianca was diagnosed and start playing around to see what I could do and what might work. So if you have cool ideas, please do share.

And then I will also start to think about what we can actually do to mark the end of treatment. Some people have parties that they share with others to celebrate the end of treatment, others prefer something quieter, and others don't want to do anything at all. I do think we will want to do something, but not quite sure what yet. So lots to think about and I'm hoping for an "ah-ha kind of moment". But it is cool that we are at the point where we can dream and think about these things, to have that end of treatment date well within sight. It seems almost unreal.

All well, but fingers crossed

Things here are going well. Bianca's counts are good, she is back to 100% dose chemo and she is overall really happy. We are on Day 3 of steroids for the month and so far Bianca's only pretty much been hungry - like in asking for food every 5 minutes pretty much.

We had a brief grumpy moment yesterday and I looked at Bianca and told her if she wants to be grumpy then she is one of the seven dwarfs in Snow White and she better grow a beard. Thankfully she wasn't grumpy for long (I just hope I'm not going to jinx myself with this because we still have 2 days of steroids left for this month).

So fingers crossed and hope for the best.

End of the school term

Today was the last day of the school term for Bianca and we now have a 2 week break ahead of us. Of course once again our first actual day of the school holidays will be spent at the hospital for monthly hospital treatment.

Every term at Bianca's school they have a certain theme or topic that they cover. This past term was bees and how honey is made and so on. Today Bianca told me their topic for next term will be all about the body. So I asked Bianca what she knew about a body and she said "that it gets cancer".

I'm so happy Bianca was able to make the last two days of the school term. We don't like keeping her out of school. Of course whenever you ask her what she did during the day we usually get "I forgot". But we do know that she loves going and loves having a lot of friends, I'm so happy she is able to go to school!

The other side of the coin

Big sigh of relief. Bianca is definitely getting over this bug. She's much more interested in things in general (she even played a game of chess with Terence tonight) and she definitely has an appetite again. Well, fussy as always, but at least very much interested in eating again. Now we must just make sure that the runny tummies are all gone and then she can go back to school (the 2 days that are left of this term). One of Terence's colleagues mentioned that you can tell whether a child is well or not by how cheeky a child is and based on that, I'd have to say that Bianca is definitely on the mend, she has regained her sense of humour and witty sayings that she amuses us with every day. (So by the way, Caitlyn's latest saying is "it's delicious!").

So at this point all is good on this side.

Last night I wrote about the more difficult side of this journey, the side that is most definitely not funny and will never be funny. Funny and child cancer - they don't belong in the same sentence. Just as easy and child cancer don't belong in the same sentence. But certainly we have found a way to make it more manageable. I remember when I sat there that first week, totally numb, shocked, heartbroken - I remember thinking that I didn't want to look back and only remember feeling sad. And so we made the decision that whatever this journey threw at us, we would find things somewhere along the line that was more positive. Caitlyn was good that way. We had to focus on her things as well. It certainly took the focus away from the cancer from time to time.

We try very hard to keep things as normal as possible for Bianca. When she couldn't go anywhere, we tried to make things fun at home, things like letting her bake things for the fairies and then they come in the night and leave special surprises:

Or planting a popcorn tree (who knew if you planted unpopped popcorn seeds that it grows into a popcorn tree where you can pick your own popcorn):


She did ballet for a little while:


She likes to dress up:


Play at the beach:


Or the park:

And just like any other kid, ride her bike:


And most of all, she loves to go to school:


We found it is possible to live life despite having cancer. But in saying that, it wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for some people that we met along the way. Sure there are some really twisted and horrible individuals out there, but there are many many really good people too. We've only ever once had a little boy commented that Bianca had no hair to which she replied "it is growing back" and she turned around and walked away. But other than that, everybody else we came across has always treated us as normal. They never pointed (that we were aware of), they didn't say anything nasty in front of us, whether at school or at ballet (for that little while) everybody just treats Bianca like one of the other kids. She has a lot of friends and the kids don't make fun of her, they accept her. And so as a result this journey has become easier and more manageable. So I want to say thank you to all of you. You will never know how much of a difference that makes to us!