Finally, an update!

Well, the last few weeks have been a real mixed bag!!! After a fantastic and very chilled-out christmas, and Peter's 40th birthday (which was pretty quiet - at his request), we headed off to Denmark camping. The kids hadn't been before and had an absolute ball. We didn't do camping in the traditional sense of sand, no power or water (or loos) but had a very civilised trip to Ocean Beach Caravan Park with nice grassed sites, new toilet and shower block and a luxury caravan to live out of! Oh yes, my style of camping! Thanks so much to Danny and Brayden for bringing the tent, caravan, shade, BBQ...almost everything we could need, it was absolutely what we needed. Each night the "boys" - all over 12 - went out fishing and I put the kids to bed in the caravan and sat about drinking wine and reading to my hearts content, heaven!

We had a brilliant visit from the amazing Miss Immie, Fee and Kody (see the picture above of the girls cooking and adding the special secret ingrediant...mmm, finger lickin' good!) and it was great to see them out of the hospital environment. We really haven't seen anyone outside the hospital or RMH other than Jack and Leanna at Hi5 which is a shame, we just don't really have anyone wanting to go out and about with us out of our hospital friends, or maybe it's just bad timing or distance.

After getting home, Peter did a bit of work to Danny's car while I ran around unpacking and repacking for Perth! We got home Thursday and left for Perth Sunday morning so it was a big rush. We dropped Aaron off in Williams on the way up and got to RMH early evening to settle in. Then...all hell broke loose once we tried to get the kids to bed. After two nights of that, Peter and Anika headed home on the bus and left us to it. Josh handled the chemo pretty well but spent one night dry retching as his tummy was empty. All considered, he did very well though with not too many tears and getting to see his lovely Ranita, CK friends Ryan, Liam and Sinead and getting to meet one of the "new kids" on the ward Mahmood. The girls at the house as usual were brilliant and Alison cheered him up with her regular hellos. On Thursday beautiful Lara Peter's cousin came to visit, Grampy made a couple of nice appearances (to feed us!). We also saw Laura, Jason and our little mate Damon who loved playing horsey races with me. It was good to see them and I got to see the beautiful pictures they have taken of their perfect little girl Savanna, born silent and taken too soon. Love and strength to you every minute of the day guys.

On Thursday afternoon we had a very nice surprise visit from Nick O'Hern the world famour golfer. He is such a lovely guy and Josh was very impressed with him after meeting him at RMH last year when he was making a very sizeable donation to them. After getting out christmas card (Josh asked to make him one) he called the house and asked to come and see us so up he came with Alison into Same Day Care to see Joshy and present him with a lovely card, one of his specially made PGA hats and a signed picture which says "To Josh, Forever my friend, Love Nick O'Hern". Such a friendly guy and so kind, even being great about the fact Josh paid no attention to him inspite of him travelling quite a way to see him as he was just so sapced out from the pain meds and totally shattered after the days chemo. Home on Saturday.

This week we travelled up again on Monday arvo and had dye for MIBG scan injected FINALLY at 6.25pm after arriving at 8.30am for our canula and 9.00am injection appointment. We waited and waited...after getting some blood and finding Josh was already neutropenic we headed "home" -to RMH- for a break at 5.30pm as Josh was getting a bit distressed and had just

fallen asleep. So much for not wasting the day and heading to the zoo for some fun! The scan booked for the next day happened almost as scheduled and Josh took ages to get over the GA (he gets very emotional and sooky) and later got some platelets so we were good to go. Left the hospital at 6.00 and packed to go home as the poor boy just wanted his puppy and his own bed. Arrived home at 11.45pm last night and he has really perked up now! Back to clinic in Albany in the morning for a blood count before the long weekend.

If you Pray, please pray for Josh, if you use reiki, send a little our way or if you use positive energy, angels or rainbows, we'll take any you've got, waiting for these scan results is always agony, this time I think I know what they will be but hope with every fibre in my body I am wrong. Love to you all,

Hannah