A Normal Week

This week has been good. As it is the school holidays Holly has been "normal" by being at home with us. That has felt good.

We saw Amos in Addenbrookes on Tuesday, all is going well after the stem cell transplant and he is very happy with Hollys numbers. We have to give her body at least 60days to recover from the high dose chemo she had, so it is looking like radiotherapy will start some time mid September. How long the radiotherapy will take is dependant on what the plan is going to be. This will be decided over the next few weeks with the team of doctors and radiotherapists. They will decide which site will receive the therapy (either the adrenal gland or the site of the larger tumour on her hip). It may be that they decide to do both areas. It will take between 2-5 weeks of daily trips to Cambridge but the actual therapy is quite quick. We are now down to twice weekly blood counts (instead of almost daily) and her counts are recovering well on their own. She hasn't needed any bloods, platelets or stem cell rescue. This is amazing and shows that her bone marrow has started working correctly. We are back in Cambridge on the 18th.

Today was a bit of a milestone for me. I took Holly shopping to get her new school uniform. I remember thinking, back in February, that she may not start her new school. I thought she might be too poorly, and never go back to school. I remember thinking that I didn't care which school she was allocated, it wouldn't matter anyway. I was wrong. She has proved me so wrong. Thank God. I would love to say she was a joy to take shopping but, the skirt was too long (on her knee!), the shoes were not cool enough and I can't tell you what she thought of the blazer! Suffice to say, she looked wonderful in it and I can't wait for this new chapter in her life to begin.