Homeward bound

Finally, expectation met reality yesterday and Fabian has been discharged from Bed 2, his home for the past 28 days.  I am pleased to say this coincided neatly with the fact that I had arrived on Friday to relieve Lydia and take the weekend stint.  Life can be so fair sometimes!  Having carefully packed up his ‘LegoCity’, I promptly tripped outside with the box and shattered 1,274 pieces across the car park. Groan.  Fabian, of course is very happy to be back home if somewhat sceptical that it is for more than a day or two.  He and Lydia have had the privilege to get to know a diverse range of families in the past weeks, all of whom share the common bond of coping with childhood cancer.  There is incredible fortitude in this community in the face of desperate odds.  Emotions are never far from the surface but there is always someone, it would seem in a worse predicament than yourself and at such times one can be a comfort.  The nursing staff exemplify some of the best in the care sector.  They’ve needed a good sense of humour, especially when caring for Fabian!

So the facts are; he has completed a further chemo block (methotrexate) and apart from a brief return of diarrhoea has remained well and free of infection.  There is now no further chemo due before he begins conditioning pre-transplant.  Monday’s bone marrow aspirate has confirmed he is in a state of full remission (amen!) but we still await his MRD, that critical molecular result which will tell us the actual level of remission (less than 1 leukaemic cell per million is some kind of threshold).  We are believing this will be the case so that he can remain on track for BMT just before Christmas.  Keeping him well for the next few weeks is the name of the game. Any spike in temperature  could mean a return to Bed 2 (or wherever) so our house is declared a bug-free zone.  We have a series of appointments with transplant, radiography and ultrasound teams ahead so a normal family routine will remain elusive, but then it will do until we finally kick this leukaemia into touch.  Thankfully we have managed to share Cassia’s 12th birthday together and a ‘pamper’ party is arranged for her tonight (er, not the boys though).  Oli has taken a  small step closer to reaching medical school having been offered 2 interviews to date.  No small feat considering the massive oversubscription for places. I’m sure donating her stem cells next month is the best preparation she could ever have to becoming a doctor and helping save life.

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Homeward Bound