Still here...

Yes we are still here, despite our constant yearning to disappear to a desert island. In fact Gregorio and I dream about it often. In former times Gregorio would have dreamed about an island with all his essentials - a pizza oven, or a pasta maker... but now a completely desert island sounds wonderful. But we can't really escape at the moment, so we try and carve out some relaxing times where we can. Last Friday we had imagined simply sitting in the garden after the kids had gone to bed, looking at the hydrangeas and sipping a glass of wine. Sadly for all concerned, the venue turned out to be the ER at Children's Hospital.

After a good day at school on Friday, Isabella developed a fever of 38.9 or 102. Fever in a post-operative patient and one with a central line is not a good sign. So we flew to Children's. It took three oncology nurses to access her port. It was an anxious 6 hours, she was swollen, tender and tired from the surgery but finally they did succeed and managed to draw blood and antibiotics were administered. Matilde and I were there till 10:30 pm, she thought it was a great evening, she got to eat in the cafeteria and quite a dinner she had - pizza, fried chicken, mac and cheese and crisps!

By 1 am Isabella, Gregorio and I were finally sitting on our bed at home (yes thankfully her blood counts were high and we were not admitted). Isabella was laughing and relieved to have the ordeal behind her, I was sipping camomile tea to try and relax while Gregorio opted for a more effective whisky!

On Saturday Isabella was a happy girl once more and we all enjoyed the school picnic. Today we are here in the oncology department again. They have decided to give only a half dose of vincristine this week but otherwise her counts are good and we move forward another week.

Let's hope we survive the last two weeks of school and chemo without any further drama and then we'll have another break. The next MRI is scheduled for July 12th. Meanwhile, it may not be a desert island but we will dream of our escape north of the border, to Canada planned for the August break.

Until then we'll make do with getting back to the pool this week-end.

Lots of love,
Emma & Gregorio. xxx