Stories from the week (1)

I've been quiet for some days, mostly because when I've had time to write a blog entry I have been too tired. Thus, not to say that there hasn't been anything happening.

Kay's treatment has been 2 different type of chemo per day for the last five days. She has not had too much difficulty with these chemos apart from some nausea which was quickly dealt with. However on Wednesday night she woke up complaining of pain in her shoulders and left wrist. The doctor was duly summoned but couldn't find anything so a painkiller was prescribed. The next morning the pain was still present and slowly receded as Kay started to move around. The duty doctor took a look and decided that it was a side effect from the ciproxin anti-biotic that Kay was getting as protection. So the cirpoxin was duly stopped. This meant that of the three protective medicines that Kay was originally proscribed, two had produced side effects (itraconasole being the other) and had been stopped. So I made of point of this and it was promised that they would come up with alternatives.

Kay has been busy all week with all sorts of things. She made a 'surprise' present for her school teacher for the 'Sint' celebration. She has had an hour of school per day. She had been doing homework, etc. In fact, considering that she was being pumped full of chemo she has been very industrious. On Tuesday the Director of the hospital TV station dropped by and asked Kay if she would like to star in an episode of the hospital's kids soap, "Good Days, Bad Days" - a rip-off of a welll know Dutch TV soap akin to Neighbours or something. Kay was up for it, so on Wednesday the filming took place. We have since been given a copy of the result and I'm extremely impressed by the professionality of the production.

In short the story is that Kay's favourite horse had been stolen. So Kay hires in a PI to track down the missing animal. At the same time 'Sint' discovers that his famous horse will not be allowed to leave Spain to come to the Netherlands because of fears of the "Spanish Horse Flu". So an enterprising 'Piet' (one of Sint's helpers) decides to nick the nearest, bestest horse, namely Kay's favourite horse. But in the process he looses the horse and has to set about finding it. There ensues the usual tom-foolery between the PI and the Piet and of course they both find the horse at the same time, etc, etc. Great stuff! The hospital sure knows how to keep children busy and entertained.

On Friday Kay was given the final chemo, check out and sent home. Now we're looking forward to a next week, namely a week of no treatment, no hospital, no doctors. Just home, rest and a small dose of something approaching "normality". Fingers crossed.