Wednesday 11 September 2019

Personal update

Just a quick update on how things are personally, so please disregard if you're only here for the hobby. The headline is that things are 'good'. We had 4 nights away at Ribby Hall Village just outside Blackpool. It's a small holiday village filled with Tim Burton-eque pastel coloured villas/lodges. We managed to go a week with the worst outbreak being the good natured banter between the four of us. We played, Catan, Dobble and Jenga and I was routinely the butt of everyone's jokes which I'll take any day if it puts a smile on their faces.

I have become the Beta male!

We had a visit to Alder Hey the week before for Oscar's latest MRI scan, alongside his hydrotherapy. Then we got to see the Oncologist later the day. I have to say leading up to the day it was horrible. I knew it was going to be like that - inbetween scans you [mostly] forget, and get on with life but as a scan date approaches you suddenly become fearful and it all comes pressing in on you. The scan showed everything was 'stable', which is the next best thing to signs of reduction. The Oncologist is happy with that so we're as happy as we can be. The radiotherapy damages the cancer cells and because they're 'foreign' cells the body doesn't repair them because it can't identify what they're supposed to be. So if they're not getting bigger they're hopefully dead and will eventually be absorbed/discarded. At least that's the way we understand it.

We took Oscar fishing, his first time ever and after countless tiny Rudd, landed this 4-5lb Carp off sweetcorn!
He's happy though and due to go back to school full time [will have gone back by the time you read this]. There are still challenges, he gets easily worried about any illness being something more sinister than it is and despite still taking daily anti-nausea tablet he has had a number of bouts of projectile vomiting. The next scan is in November, these will be every three months and then six months for the next 4.5 years but as we approach the 1st anniversary of discovering his brain tumour I'm keen to keep this clock moving. I don't want a situation where we don't appreciate the progress, the things we've done despite horrible bits.


We also went to Ormskirk Motorfest and we had to get a pic of Oscar with a Traffic Officer vehicle and a roll-up banner that I made for them. So things are good and we'll keep moving on until November and the next scan.

8 comments:

  1. Excellent news, thanks for the update on little Horus, ahem, I mean Oscar! Wish you well and hope as you say his body gets rid of the cells naturally and you see some reduction next scan.

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  2. Greg I wasn't aware of this & can really find no word, other then to say my thoughts are with you & your family as you battle through what is very parents nightmare.

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    1. Not to worry Frank, I appreciate your support. If you want the full scoop of what happened it's here: https://www.40kaddict.uk/2018/11/181018.html
      There are some subsequent updates buried in other posts but it's not compulsory. Thanks for your concern.

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  3. Goad things are moving forward and hopefully each scan will show an improvement, no matter how small.

    I have to say, Oscar doesn't look to enamored with that fish! It's a beauty though.

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    1. We were super impressed with the fish, couldn't believe. There was another little girl and her mother joining in too, the daughter lost interest after the first Rudd, her mother took over and was literally green with envy over his fish, proper gutted she didn't catch anything close to it ;)

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  4. That’s really great that he is showing improvement. I can’t imagine how tough it must be to see your child have to suffer through something so horrible

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    1. Peaks and troughs gets you through. For now it's almost normal, but come the next scan we'll be more on edge.

      The treatment itself was just 20-30 minutes on a machine. Psychologically it was difficult leaving him alone in that room and imagining you're 'radiating your child'.

      Getting to Clatterbridge on the Wirral was a little challenging as we would go first thing in the morning and hit the early rush hour through the Mersey Tunnel and we had such a range of weather in Jan/Feb. But if 'traffic' is really the worst we had to deal with during that time that's not that bad really.

      The facts remain, brain tumours are uncommon, brain tumours in kids are even more uncommon. We got this early, they've irradiated EVERYTHING [so they don't miss anything], it's not the 'high grade' cancer they thought it was and there's no sign of it getting worse! On top of that the potential long term side-effects have been minimal so far. There could have been issues with motor functions, memory, learning and growth. He's a little forgetful, but he always was a bit 'fey' ;) We'll take it any day of the week though!

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