The last few weeks have been particularly busy in the Barratt household with lots of ups and downs.
Thomas was very excited last week as it was his birthday. Where on earth have the last 6 years gone? For the first time ever, I was unable to arrange a party to celebrate him turning 6 but Thomas was fine with this (he got an extra gift as compensation). He got lots of lovely presents including a new fishing rod so him and Paul can go catch our dinner one night!
We had a lovely family day at the nearby mountain (Nebo) where we had a sausage sizzle and the boys made a paracute out of a carrier bag for Thomas's toy power ranger! They had so much fun and Paul's expertise in toy paracute making didn't go unnoticed! We had a lovely evening out with friends at the local bowls club last Friday(yes bowls club)! Its the closest thing to a pub where we can also get a chinese meal and all in walking distance from our house-bonus,no driving so more drinks to be had!
Last week wasn't so great for me.I had a few moments of utter worry and being scared about what if? I quickly pulled myself together and things are fine again now! Those dark moments are so scary but I suppose its something we have to deal with as its the reality of Charlie's illness. I just remind myself that his prognosis is good so fingers crossed we have no complications along the way.
Thomas has been on his school holidays for the past week and we have been busy going to the beach, meeting up with friends,going for picnics and going to the park. We're fortunate enough to have gorgeous weather at the moment with temperatures around 24C so being outdoors and away from too many people (for Charlies sake) is working out well. Another week of school holidays and I may go mad though!!!
We had lunch round at a friends house yesterday, then headed out to the hospital for Charlie's treatment whilst Tom stayed and played in the water with his friends. The school holidays are always a little tricky with childcare as I don't like Thomas to see what Charlie goes through plus its such a long,boring day sat there which again isn't fair on Tom.
Charlie screamed most of the way to the hospital, asking me not to take him.I managed to settle him then once we arrived at the ward,he started again. He was hysterical. There was nothing at all I could do to console him and it was a horrible experience whereby I felt so helpless and just wanted to take him away from it all. These kind of moments really hit me hard and make me wish I had my friends and family around for support.
We waited around to see the consultant and as I'd suspected,Charlie's neutrophil's (infection fighting) were low again this week. He has been fighting off a runny nose so we were told that this may have contributed to lower counts. The consultant informed me that his chemotherapy would not be able to be increased this week due to his low counts but he would still go ahead with the chemo,just at the same dose as last week. We spoke about Charlie's anxiety around coming to the hospital and the doctor said she would have a chat with our Occupational Therapist and ask her to do some work with us around this to try to alleviate some of his worries.
After seeing the consultant we waited around for the chemotherapy to be made up and then Charlie laid on the bed whislt the nurses hooked him up to the "robot" which again, he wasnt happy about but tollerated well considering. I had promised him some chips from the cafe downstairs as this was a special treat for being a brave boy,only to find that when we'd finished at 6.30pm, they were closed!
Never mind, we headed home and daddy's chips hit the spot. Charlie was just happy to be home and playing with his big brother again and I was just glad to be out of that horrible place!
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