Any Given Sunday

It's been a quiet period for us, no major chemo, a few trips to Ipswich hospital for platelets and a new NG tube as the plastic had broken, but that's it.


It's Sunday, the house is quiet, the girls are watching telly and playing and its lovely. It's a good time to reflect on what we've been through since Caitlin was diagnosed in January. This rollercoaster has been non-stop and it's been hard to catch our breath, the toll it's taken on us all has been unimaginable and hopefully this rest period will prove helpful. We're at week 13, Caitlin has Vincristine on Thursday at Ipswich Hospital and that's it this week. The week after she doesn't have any chemo which is a novelty to us all!


Week 15 however, is very different. Caitlin will start the next block of chemo in the Regimen, which is called Escalating Capizzi (if you want to look it up), and it's pretty intense. It increases the intensity of the Methotrexate given via her Hickman which is every 10 days. I will scan the flowchart some time in the next couple of days, which will explain it a lot better. The one thing I've found from looking at the Google results of Escalating Capizzi is that it's very effective against Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia, so I'm not going to moan about what we're going to have to go through.

*UPDATE*

Caitlin had to have a blood test earlier on, and from Caitlin's pale complexion it looked likely she would have to have a blood transfusion. Sure enough the results proved just that so at 4 we went to the hospital and Caitlin had new blood. This might be a recurring theme for the coming month as her blood counts being up are vital for the effectiveness of the chemo.

At this point I'd like to say a massive thank you to Nicola Gouldsmith of Halfpenny House Haberdashery for donating loads of material for the Hickman bags that my mum has been making for Caitlin and donating to Addenbrooke's. Also a massive thanks to Denise for sending the girls some lovely Easter treats, they really appreciated it.

xxx