Well it has been a difficult year and, realistically, the coming year will be just as difficult.

Right now Elaine is ok, there are some issues but overall she is functioning quite well. The main issue is a UTI which is proving very, very hard to control and is causing quite a bit of grief. However we have just had a few days away in the van and I think that Elaine enjoyed most of it.

There is not much else to say, I just hope that between us we can handle whatever 2018 throws at us.

Wow, once again I am taken aback by the length of time since my last blog.

 Not a lot has happened and we don't talk about you know what in the hopes that it will get insulted and nick off. Elaine still has various niggledy issues but strong girl that she is she just keeps going. Last weekend we had our annual Chunamas family show which involves about 20 people including our lovely grandchildren, but is mostly adults. Elaine arranged it and at her insistence did a fair bit of the work. Reluctantly towards the end however, she allowed Toni and me to do a bit. But the day was attribute to her determination and was enjoyed, as usual, by all.

One of Elaine 'little' issues has been an ongoing UTI, like about 6 weeks ongoing. Eventually she surrendered and allowed her doctors to admit her to hospital where they are pumping her full of antibiotics. Obviously by intravenous drip and it is having a beneficial effect. Hopefully she will be home by next Tuesday.

Wow it is a month since I last posted, not good.

Not much has happened in that month. We have finished the radiotherapy and with nothing else on offer are just sitting around waiting to see what happens next. Elaine us basically feeling good, she has lots of relatively little nagging things but her pain level is right down so she is able to feel just a little better in herself. We have had a chat with our oncologist but he had nothing to add other than to report that her blood chemistry is good. She is still very lethargic and has permanent damage to one leg which affects her walking but these are minor issues in the big picture.

We know what the end result will be so we aren't living in a fantasy world but we are able to enjoy this relative freedom. Over the next couple of weeks we have organised family stuff, then unless the van is sold we will take a bit of a break. In fact either way we will take a break!

I will try to keep up the blog despite the lack of exciting activity, like treatments and doctors visits, to report.

Well nothing has changed since my last post, but we are coming to terms with the situation. That means planning for our short term, being that's what it is, bucket list. We are positive and will stay moderately cheerful, sort of.

Tomorrow we will see the radiation oncologist and hear what, if anything, he can do.

Yesterday was not a good day.

We had chemo in the morning followed by a visit to our palliative care doctor followed by a list with our pain specialist. Then we saw our oncologist who gave us the bad news about Elaine's tumours, there are more of them and some of the old ones are growing. He also said that we are out of chemical treatment options and that he will refer us again to the radiologist to see what he can do.

Not much that I can say, we will try to remain positive and keep Elaine as comfortable as possible and make it all last as long as possible.

Bummer!

Another quiet week.

Elaine is relatively pain free, I say relatively because there is still some pain but my trooper wife has been handling it very well. We have done a few things like visiting grandchildren and friends and normal things like that for the first time in ages. The other point to remember is that there is still a long list of daily medication.

Anyway we are very pleased to have the relief an a bit more freedom. This week is more hectic, like today a ct scan and blood test, followed by a visit to a very nice food shop. Then tomorrow we have the pleasure of Jax's company. Then on Wednesday we have chemo (imonotherapy) and our pain specialist and our medical oncologist.

This is me reporting in.

Nothing much has changed this week. We had a visit with the radiation oncologist and he had nothing new to say until he sees the newest ct scan, which will be next Monday. Elaine in the meantime is experiencing relatively little pain. That will be partly due to to radiation having had a beneficial effect (we hope so anyway) and partly due to the medication. They did very little to change Elaines medication during her short hospital visit, in fact I rather feel that the exersize was a bit pointless. The only change was in fact a different patch and that was suggested before she went in! However it did give her a bit of a break from me and home and probably relaxed her more than she would have relaxed at home.

Elaine does seem to be quite fatigued at the moment, probably with good reason. We have had a rather hectic weekend of family matters. She has attended functions on Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday morning (that involved walking around, or being wheeled around, for a couple of hours), Sunday afternoon and a full day of activity yesterday. I am a bit worn out out so she should be more than worn out.

There it is, thus passes another week in the exciting life of Elaine and Graham Cohen.

Okay it is time to catch up again.

Elaine is looking and acting a lot better due probably to dramatically reduced pain levels. The pain has been decreasing steadily since last Sunday week and at this point she has not required any breakthrough medication for the last 4 days. It would appear therefore that the radiotherapy has had a beneficial effect.

She had benn admitted to Hollywood to reassess and adjust, as required, her medication. Chemo, or more correctly immunotherapy, is continuing and she was taken down by the staff here earlier today for this weeks bout.

The last couple of weeks have been a bit full on and I keep running out of time but I have a few minutes now so I will update the life and times of Elaine and Graham.

At last count we had started radiotherapy which continued for a further 8 treatments. This process inflames the tumours before zapping (hopefully) them. So the pain in Elaines right thigh increased dramatically and she spent most of the week in lots of heavy pain which continued into the following week. We also had an appointment with the pain specialist who wanted to put Elaine into hospital to readjust her background medication. After a lot of  deep thought she agreed and will be admitted to Hollywood next Monday for a maximum of 1 week when she will either be discharged or she will just walk!! We also had appointments with both the radiation and the medical oncologists.

The pain was so bad that at the end of last week we had Silver Chain in 4 times for morphone injections and used large amounts of her breakthrough medication. However last Friday was the last radiotherapy and the pain seems to be reducing, there is still lots of it and Elaine is still weary, but there is at this point light at the end of the tunnel.

Cancer is a shit of a disease, as some of you already know, but we keep working on it and try to stay positive. The staying positive bit is, I am sure, very hard for Elaine but she is doing well in that regard. I will try to get back to regular blogs.

Okay, this is a long overdue blog and my excuse is that it has been a rather busy couple of weeks.

It started with an afternoon appointment with the radiation oncologist late on Monday 4th.  Followed by simulation for her treatment on Tuesday, which is also the day that we have the pleasure of Jax's company. We are lucky that Jax is fairly easy to entertain, I took him for an ice cream while Elaine was measured up.  Wednesday was a day off but Elaine is doing it tough with a lot of pain, so we are kept busy trying to keep that under control. Thursday and Friday I had pleasurable granddaughter duties while Elaine suffered at home. Then Monday was chemo, actually immunotherapy, Tuesday Jax again then we had Wednesday to recover. Wednesday was also a visit with our pain specialist, the clinic at Chatlies actually squeezed us in and we were able to fine tune the medication. Thursday and Friday we started radiation which consists of Elaine spending 1 whole hour under the machine. However she handled it well.

The pain is still there but the medication is helping a bit more so we just keep rolling along. Hopefully the combination on immunotherapy and radiotherapy will reduce the tumours and therefore the pain. Fingers crossed.

I spent last week following up on Dr Troons request that the radiotherapy be started urgently. Apparently urgently has a different meaning to that which I have been taught. On Saturday my GP friend said don't panic it will all happen and a few days here or there is not important. He is probably correct but I still want it all to proceed at a much faster pace and, after all, it is my wife at the business end of all this.

Anyway we finally got to see Dr Chee, the radiotherapy man, at 4 pm today and started the ball rolling, he agrees that speed is of the essence! Obviously I need medical school training to understand this 'speed' thing. He made up an instruction sheet for his girls, we went and saw them but they couldn't finish it off and give us our simulation appointment because he had not entered it to his computer yet. He did however waive his fee as we are already patients at Genesis. Once the simulation is done and the appropriate aiming marks are carved into Elaines body they will make up a mask for her head. This mask is to keep her head still while they bombard the back of her skull and this can take 7 days for the manufacture thereof.

So all being well we will start radiotherapy next week. In the meantime Elaine has considerable pain and the extensive medication being administered by yours truly is having a limited effect. Lucky she is a bit of of a toughie.

Well it has been a busy and somewhat trying week or 10 days since my last blog.

The scans were duly had and the following day we fronted up to the pain specialist and got our first hint that all was not rosy. However he dealt with the pain issues and changed Elaine's medication a little. The next day we visited our GP primarily to get a script and got another hint that we had issues to deal with. Then on Thursday our oncologist brought forward Monday's appointment to Friday, not good.

So on Friday we learned that the cancer is progressing with several new lesions appearing and some old ones growing larger. There is however some good in that the huge tumour that started all this gas gone. The good news of course is that our oncologist was on to it and arranged to start a new treatment on Monday. This we did and hopefully it will kick the hell out of this disease.

He also said that he would request urgent radiotherapy to attack the areas that are causing Elaine's current high level of pain and that the radiotherapy people would contact us to make arrangements. So far we have not heard from them so I will follow up tomorrow.

In the meantime Elaine has a lot of pain and we are doing our best to cope with it.

Just a short blog today. As usual we had a visit with the nurses at Hollywood's chemo ward today and they are lovely bunch of girls. It took a while today as they had a bit of drama with another patient but out treatment went well. Elaine has been having quite a lot of pain during the last couple of weeks, but her spirit is still good. We are having scans tomorrow followed by a visit with our pain specialist on Wednesday and our oncologist next Monday. So we will find out from them what is going on and hopefully take steps to counteract the issues.

Another week another chemo treatment or in this case 2 chemo treatments.

Last week after our treatment we went to visit first our pain specialist then our oncologist and it turned out to be a very long day, we got home from our 11am  appointment at 7pm. Anyway to get back to the subject at hand, first Dr Chan the pain guru who changed Elaine's medication increasing the pain reduction stuff. Then we visited Simon Troon our oncologist and he found a lesion that has been eluding us for weeks. Elaine has a pain in her left chest below her boob and dispite the fact that we knew something was happening no one could find anything. But on Wednesday Elaine showed him a lump which he then found on the latest scan and thereby identified another, 1cm, tumour located between her ribs. Damn. So he booked us in for another 3 weekly treatments and because Wednesday's are very busy we have had a go at Monday which was busy when we got there, a 45 minute wait, but was almost empty by the time we left at 3pm.

Overall Elaine's week has been very painful requiring lots of breakthrough medication which had limited success. Hopefully the change of medication will kick in and make this a better week

I know, I am late but the old saying is 'better late than never' and I felt a bit out of sorts last night.

Last week was fairly routine we had chemo on Wednesday and this time it took ages. Our appointment was 2pm and we got in just a little late and basically every thing went smoothly, just a little slow. We got home at 6.45pm a bit tired so dinner was simple followed by early bed. Elaine is doing as well as can be expected, lots of pain dealt with by lots of rest and extra medication as needed    .But she is more like her old self and is doing lots like a bit of cooking, a bit of cleaning etc.

This week we will be visiting with our pain specialist so he might do something about the ongoing pain.

It is starting to be a bit boring, not really but we are continuing much the same as we have been continuing for the last several weeks.

The only difference last week was that, due to some mouth sores, chemo was cancelled. This was after we had gone through the preliminaries prior to starting the premeds. Elaine still has a fair bit of pain and we are doing whatever we can to deal with that. Not much we can do though, but we keep trying. However she still tries and does do as much as she can in all areas which is great and shows Elaine for the trooper she is.

That's about it until next week.

Life is becoming a bit routine. We start the week with a blood test Monday morning then we go to chemo on Wednesday. Last week we had a bit of variation with a visit the oncologist on Monday afternoon. Then we went to the shops on Tuesday and Elaine did very well looking for a present for a 3 yo with a birthday was on Wednesday and a party on the weekend. Wednesday as above and on Thursday I did a bit if work in the morning and some friends that we have not seen for ages dropped info a chat. Friday more of the same followed by our Friday night dinner hostess coming to us for dinner.

So all that mad a liar of the routine bit, but it was a most unusual week. I should add that we baby sat, using our van, on Saturday night and had Lyla for lunch followed by the birthday party on Sunday.

The effect on Elaine was that she was tired and her aches and pains were a little more obvious. There are still lots of bits of aches, pains and just not feeling well to put up with almost non-stop. But she does that and still does little bits and pieces. Last week she made choke soup, today verge soup and a chicken dish for dinner. She is paying for all that right now, tucked up in bed and feeling buggered. All in all though she is doing well in herself.

Well I should have done this last night, but better late than never.

We have had a reasonable week with the usual chemo on Wednesday and as usual Elaine is handling it all very well. The port made chemo easier as they didn't have to go looking for a vein. Pain is still the ever present issue and she had nerve blocks on Saturday for the pain in her chest. However they do not appear to have worked. Overall the pain level is up a bit at the moment and for the first time in 2 months we need a daily dose of break through medication.

Our visit to the oncologist on Monday was good as we appear at the stage, based on the scan results, to be holding our own against the cancer. The current treatment will therefore continue for the time being, on a weekly basis.

So we are still positive although Elaine is putting up with a lot of pain, severe loss of energy and hair loss. But as I said she is handling it well.

The time has come the walrus said !!!! I am not sure that the walrus actually knew what he was on about, but it is time to update Elaine's progress.

This has been a reasonable week with chemo going smoothly with the first treatment using her brand new port. The port sits just under the skin and is accessed by a special needle saving all the fiddling around that goes with finding the correct vein and inserting a new canula each time. so that was a saving in time and discomfort for Elaine. It is hard to tell whether we are winning but a CT scan to be performed tomorrow will bring us up to date when we get the results next week. With this disease winning is a rarity, holding ones own is about as good as it gets. My opinion would be that we are sort of holding our own as Elaine's pain level appears to be constant, varying locations but overall the level stays about the same. Elaine is losing hair at rapid rate and we have had a very useful chat with the cancer council's Wig Library on this score.

Elaine herself is still dealing with it all remarkably well, remains fairly cheerful, entertaining our grandchildren and tonight cooking most of the dinner. In fact she manages to do a few jobs every day.

I did not do a blog earlier this week, naughty boy. You know the routine, he is not  a saint just a naughty boy.

Anyway the week has been ok with Elaine doing reasonably well. At this stage of her treatment that statement is always relative. Actually she still has pain in her left lower chest and after a visit with Dr Chan, our pain specialist, arrangements have been made for a nerve block to control this pain, but not until mid July. As usual wear a blood test on Monday followed by chemo on Wednesday.  Unfortunately we were not able to use Elaine's new 'port' until 2 days after this weeks treatment, however it all went well. After chemo we went to see Dr Chan at his clinic at Charlies and parking there is now rather difficult. I have to drop Elaine at the appropriate door then drive around the block and into the multi story car park, which takes about 10 minutes. Anyway we did see him and arranged the nerve block as above.

The pain is not Elaine's only issue, she is still seriously lacking in energy and spends most of the day in bed. However Elaine being Elaine she does her best to do things and spend a fair bit of time out of bed.

So we move on to next week.

Okay we now have Elaine home, they could not wait to get rid of her. That is not really true but they did inform her first thing this morning that she could go and she was packed up and ready to roll when I got there at about 11am. However we cannot use the port until June 30, probably something to do with this end of financial year that everybody is talking about?!?!?! Oh well, she will have 2 more treatments the old way and I wonder how hard it will be to find the vein for the canula.

Okay Elaine now has a port in her right shoulder, not the sort that one would sail a boat into or one that one would use for a computer peripheral but a port nonetheless . It will be used for her chemo infusions and will, hopefully, save all the drama that has been involved in getting a canula in place. During the last few treatments.

Madam doesn't like the hospital , not necessarily Hollyeood, although she has had some seriously cutting remarks about Hollywood. I think that she just doesn't like the idea of being in hospital, and I fo not blame her, and so she is not at all a happy camper. So with a bit of luck she will come home tomorrow and they will probably be just as happy as she will be if that happens.

Thus ends another week which has been OK for Elaine. Lots of little issues but that is to be expected and she is coping well being the strong person that she has proved to be.

Chemo this week was fairly usual in that we got there just a little before our 1.30pm appointment and were collected at about 2pm for the process to start. This is not bad and not unexpected as this day ward is very busy and sometimes patients take longer than was anticipated. We proved that when the nurses had a lot of trouble finding an appropriate vein in which to insert a canula and it was about 3pm before the actual infusion started. We finished at about 4.30pm and trotted over, or more accurately drove over to Simon Troon's rooms for our regular follow up visit. After some discussion based on the issue that the nurses have with Elaine's recalcitrant veins we decided to get a port installed. This basically is a permanent hole in Elaine's skin through which they can insert the tubes for her infusions. Sounds bad but isn't and will, we trust, make life a lot easier on chemo days. That happens on Monday when we were booked in to arrive at Hollywood at the unearthly hour of 6.30am. However I have just been advised of a reprieve changing the time to 8.30am.

Well we are back at home and Elaine is doing okay. The only issue is that she is feeling a bit under the weather which is probably a combination of the chemo and the reduction in her nasty, habit forming drugs. The biggest symptom is a complete lack of energy, but Elaine is Elaine is Elaine and she is getting up and spending as much time as possible out of bed. On the weekend we had visits from our youngest grandchildren and from our oldest which always seems to cheer madam up.

That's about it for now.

Here we are back at home after  a 4 day break. First day to Eneabba then south west to Milligans Island (half way between Leeman and Greenhead). Elaine struggled a bit so we came home yesterday and lucky that we did as there was a major holdup on that road today. Today Elaine was great, not perfect but not struggling like the last couple of days.

Thus week is back into the routine of blood tests, doctors and chemo. Hopefully it will all proceed without a hitch.

There we are sitting around at home getting ready for the next chemo treatment to be followed by a visit to our oncologist and one of us says "why don't we take a little trip starting after chemo?"  The other one says "maybe". So we have our little visit with Dr Troon after chemo and he says that, seeing that Elaine is tolerating the treatment so well, we will continue on and do 9 weeks treatment straight. We say okay, then decide on the way home to have a 6 day trip. Northwards of course and the target is set as Kalbarri.

So Thursday morning after I get stitches removed by my dermatologist we jump in the van and drive of into the sunset, actually it was a bit late for sunrise and a bit too early for sunset. We intended to spend the night at Eneabba where they allow visitors to park on what was once a football oval for the princely sum of $5 each. On the way we detoured to the Bindoon Bakehaus, as one does, for bread and lunch. They detour was only about 15 km extra but we arrived at Eneabba after travelling about 295 km and were both worn out. Thus Kalbarri was ruled out as too hard.

Today we have travelled about 60 kms, sort of southwards, to the Milligan Island Eco Camp provided by the Shire of Coorow and costing just $15 per night. This is a fairly new site and set up for about 36 units, all in well marked and well seperated bays. When we arrived early afternoon only a couple of people were here, but it is filling rapidly and will no doubt be packed by tomorrow night.

Madam is doing well, she drove a bit yesterday and all the way today. She is still short of energy and it still worries her, but we are assured that it is par for the course with this treatment. I trust that the break will be beneficial to her (and to me).

Mmmmmmmm.......I thought that I had done a blog since last Monday, but as I cannot see it I must be imagining it. I must be cracking up.

Anyway since last Monday we have had chemo again, the new chemo that is on Wednesday May 24. This time a bit of a schamozzle. We went first for a visit with our very nice pain specialist, Dr Chin Werne Chan, who basically rubber stamped the changes to Elaine's medication. The only change was to increase the sleeping tablet component as she was not, and still is not sleeping well. Then on to the chemo day ward for our 2.30pm appointment but on arrival we were informed that we were not expected. Ow that hurt, they informed us that our oncologists rooms had cancelled us the previous day, saying that we would be having the chemo as an inpatient in the ward upstairs. Strand seeing that we had seen Dr Troon on the Monday and he expected us to be in the day ward. So the very friendly day ward staff phoned his rooms and confirmed that we were to be treated. But the day ward was flat out, so we were sent upstairs and treated in the inpatient ward as a day patient!! Sounds a bit complex but it worked and we got home at 6.30pm......long day.

Since then Elaine has been fine, albeit with a little nausea and no more pain than normal. She has also not been sleeping anywhere near as much and is more alert both of which are bonuses which we hope will continue.

This week will see us at chemo again followed by a session with our oncologist.

She is home, you beauty. Dr Troon visited today and decided that Elaine was ready to go home. We have a course of antibiotics to finish off the infection and the list of medication has been reduced mainly by withdrawing some of the heavy hitters. So hopefully we will not have any more episodes like last Wednesday. Also hopefully the infection will go away and stay away.

Elaine's appetite has been poor in hospital and did not improve for tonight's meal. To be fair it was not fantastic, I did not defrost anything this morning as I was not sure what the day would bring. So dinner was chicken roll and curry puffs from the freezer, all home made, Elaine had some but not a lot. She is also a little subdued at the moment, hopefully that will change over the next few days.

I feel a blog coming on, in fact it has been coming on since about mid afternoon yesterday.

Yesterday was chemo day and it started badly when I tried to wake Elaine up for her morning meds. That became bigger than BenHur but she did eventually get up and take her meds and drink her morning tea. During that period she was quite her usual self  or what has become her usual self. So I headed off for my dermatologist who removed a small piece of my back for testing, then returned home and picked up madam. Off to Hollywood we went where they started her new chemo treatment. First the premeds all going well at this stage, then they tried to wake her for the main event and she would not wake up. She in fact was unconscious.. Next thing we have about 10 people rushing around, giving her injections to wake her up and checking that nothing dramatic was wrong. Eventually they did wake her up and after a while were able to complete the chemo. It appears that Elaine had become overloaded with the opiates which are a major part of her anti-pain meds. So last night was spent her at Hollywood for observation and as she is still very confused and they want do lots of tests she will be staying here st least for tonight.

A little scary but I don't think there is any serious unexpected drama, but we will find out when we speak to dr Troon.

Well we are back home after a very pleasant 6 day break which cleared our heads a bit.

Yesterday we enjoyed a very pleasant Mother's Day with visits from all of our family...fantastic.

Today we are back into routine getting a blood test this morning, organising our medication requirements for next week, etc.

Elaine has a bit of extra pain last night and tonight, no doubt due to the weeks activities including the enjoyable but active time spent with our grandchildren. This has not stopped her from making chicken soup tonight!

We are on the way home after 2 days travelling and 2 days in Kalbarri. The first 2 nights spent at the Murchison House Station which was very basic but pleasant enough and I got some good photographs of the Murchison River with the drone. The last night at the Big Rivet Ranch which was much nicer and worth the extra cost. I also managed some more photographs included some of the horses which are their main focus. We also did some driving around and looking and Elaine did some walking which can only be good. She is also doing well and is much more involved than in the recent past, including some driving.

Tonight we are camped at Eneabba on their Showgrounds which is a low cost, 24 hour spot on the edge of the town. Home tomorrow to get ready for Mother's Day, we have driven further today than is our normal distance and will again tomorrow, but that was necessary to get some time in Kalbarri.

Hey we are travelling again!

Our oncologist suggested that, as there was to be no treatment or ct scans or anything else this week, we could p.......s off for the week. So we packed the van and headed north with Kalbarri in our sights. We drove up Indian Ocean Drive to a rest stop that I found on GeoWiki but after a wrong turning, going back some 28km it turned out to be 'camping forbidden' so we headed back up the road. The next stop, also from GeoWiki about 10km from Dongara was ok and there is another couple of vans here, so we have camped. A long day for us as we normally try to keep our days under 200km and this one was 350km but it was a nice drive. Tomorrow we will cover 250kms to Murchison  Station where we will unwind for a couple of days before heading home.

Now to Elaine, she is doing well. On the Sunday we had couple of the family round which is always lovely and Elaine managed to spend a lot of time with the kids. After this week we start a new chemo treatment which we gather is a little intense, so we will see what happens. Effectiveness and hopefully little side effect is what we are looking for.......we shall see! By the way she also drove for a bit today.

Life doesn't always go to plan and today was an example of that.

Elaine had chemo today followed by a visit to our oncologist where we got the results of Monday's scan. As we had anticipated the tumours had all grown enough to be concerning. Obviously the current treatment is not working very well and the effect of the previous treatment on her blood levels means that we can't go back to that and a change is called for. That is exactly what will happen, after a week off we will start a new treatment and that will, hopefully, work. Our oncologist wants us to make a point of taking breaks and I suspect (as he does) that Elaine's bloods will be the driver for the breaks.

In the meantime we remain positive and will make the most of whatever time we have.

Thus starts a new month and Elaine is going well and, according to her doctor and pharmacist, is looking good. She is too, but of course the issues still exist. She has put on a bit of weight, probably a combination of medication and reduced activity. She also has difficulty walking, but over all she is doing well. Of course there is still pain but the medication appears to be keeping this at a manageable level.

The side effects of chemo are still minimal, except for her various blood levels. This is an issue as it has resulted in a lighter dose of chemo and the possible resurgence of the tumours. We will find out more about that when we see the oncologist on Wednesday, after chemo, as he will have the results of today's ct scan.

We managed to spend the weekend down at Woodmans Point again and that did us both a lot of good. The down side was that I didn't get to have a sail and suffered a minor injury helping around the club. I will have to do something about being able to launch the boat without help.

Not a lot to report again.

Elaine has now completed her 10 shots of radiotherapy and we think that it has been successful in shrinking the shoulder tumour. Mind you it is still very painful but, as the radiation oncologist pointed out , there will be scar tissue and ongoing pain. But that is manageable. Chemo started again this week with more next week followed by a visit to Dr Troon.

In herself Elaine is doing well, still has quite a bit of pain and is very fatigued. The fatigue bit is understandable with chemo, radiology and a huge load of medication. But she has been doing things around the house, cooking and telling me where to improve my housekeeping.

All in all we do seem to be holding our own against fairly stiff opposition.

From one extreme to the other but by way of an excuse we have been a bit busy and I guess I just felt like a bit of a break from communicating.

Anyway as a result of the changed plans we started radiotherapy on Monday April 10 then had a break for Easter and are now back to daily visits to Genesis for treatment. Wednesday April 12 was busy with radiotherapy late morning at Joondalup followed by chemo at Hollywood then a visit with Simon Troon our oncologist. The visit with Simon confirmed the treatment plan and discussed the possibility that the reduced chemo is not as effective and the tumours are, once again, growing. This will be verified by a scan in a couple of weeks time. In the meantime all is proceeding as planned and yesterday was once again a long day of medical stuff.

Elaine is as usual handling all this well but has quite a bit of extra pain, resulting in the reinstatement of some of her medication. This of course does not assist with her memory or her reactions. However she did manage, with a lot of help from Toni, to organise Pesach for 14 of our family the rest being in Bali. We also got away in our motorhome to Woodmans Point and the boat for the weekend which was a nice break in routine.

Don't pass out, I just felt that an update was called for.

Today Elaine got measured up for radiotherapy on her shoulder which is messing up a bit. We will start the radiotherapy on April 13 which will hopefully bring it under control, or as close to that as this disease permits. Yesterday we had chemo after an appointment with Dr Chan, our pain specialist. Nothing special to report there except that we think that the reduced dosage maybe allowing the tumours to grow. We will discuss this with the oncologist when we see him after chemo next week.

In the meantime Elaine is all fired up to have Pesach (passover) at our place as usual despite the obvious difficulties caused by pain and fatigue. Toni will of course be her major assistant and it will happen.

Another week of not much happening, hence I didn't remember to do the blog.

Anyway Elaine is still going reasonably well, at least as well as can be expected. There is still quite a bit of pain, especially from her shoulder which, tumour, is not reducing as the others are reducing. The pain medication is therefore getting quote a workout. In herself Elaine is doing very well and is doing more and more of her normal activities, that is a bit of an exaggeration but she is doing lots more now than some months ago. In fact we visited the club on Friday and attended Allie's 1st birthday party in Kings Park yesterday. She is however still very fatigued and spends a lot of time in bed sleeping.

This week we will be visiting our radiation oncologist and doing chemo, so a busy week to come.

So! A couple of days ahead of my normal schedule, just to keep you on your toes.

Today was results day and, like students waiting for end of year marks, we were just a little bit nervous. It is all very well being positive but when you do not have any guide posts to check and you are dealing with something like cancer one can't help being just a bit nervous. As it turned out the positive was what worked. All but one of Elaine's tumours have shrunk, some more than others, but a good result none the less. The one that went against the trend only grew marginally and our oncologist has decided to send it back to radiotherapy. The chemo will continue with just one of the drugs and I would think that we will measure again in another 6-8 weeks. It will be interesting to see how effective the one drug is as today's scan would be showing the results of half two drugs and half one drug.

Anyway we are happy with the results and hope that they continue to be positive.

It is blog time again, good morning everybody.

This week has been fairly smooth. Elaine is experiencing a fair bit of pain, perhaps a little increased over the past couple of weeks. Medication is however helping to keep the pain, more or less, under control. She had a CT scan last Wednesday and will get the results when we see our oncologist next Wednesday. This will tell us what the accursed cancer is doing.

Other than that there is nothing new to report.

I have just been prompted to get the blog up to date and yes it is 7 days since the last one.

Not much happened last week. Blood test on Monday and it was obviously satisfactory because we did chemo on Wednesday. Chemo is, for now only one drug so that Elaine's blood is not affected as much as it has been affected. She has had a bit more pain this week than has been the norm lately, but medication is stopping it from becoming too overbearing. This week we have a CT scan on Wednesday followed by an appointment with our pain specialist. So we will be able to sort the pain bit out, maybe we have been too quick to reduce the medication. Then next week we see the oncologist and get the results of the scan, hopefully there will not be any unpleasant surprises and we will see whether the change to the chemo has had any adverse effects.

I have been behaving myself, no additional toys this week. In fact they have been ignored, other than the trumpet of course.

Once again a large break between blogs, somehow this week has whizzed by. I must have been busy, but I can't think what I did.

Anyway it was a fairly normal week for her ladyship. Blood test on Monday and that showed that some of the markers were still low, but not low enough to cause further postponement of her chemo. So on Wednesday we fronted up for chemo, but this time only for one of the drugs. Our oncologist has done this to make sure that she can continue to have treatment and hopefully this will continue to belt the cancer around. Elaine seems to be experiencing an increase in pain at the moment. Hopefully this is because we have reduced the medication, which thought we will discuss with our pain specialist. Despite that she is still handling it all very well.

Okay a new report is due and here it comes.

On Tuesday we were informed that Elaine's blood test on Monday had returned less than favourable results. So we had to do another test early, like 7.30am, on Wednesday morning to enable our doctor to decide on wether or not to proceed with chemo. The answer was no, which is not what we wanted to hear, although it probably means that the stuff is still in her system and doing things. Anyway we had an afternoon visit with himself and he is still pleased with her improvement but wants to keep things going. So we are back to, now twice delayed, chemo next week but only one of the drugs. Then after this round of treatment a CT scan to see the results.

In the meantime Elaine does have some more pain mainly in her left buttock and her right shoulder blade. The left buttock bit has probably been aggravated by the Physio 2 weeks ago. Anyway at the stage we are still positive and madam is doing reasonably well. Fit enough that yours truly had yesterday off to play with his newest toy, lucky boy.

Crikey mikey 2 weeks since the last blog! That is absolutely disgusting.

Not much has happened. During our week off from chemo we packed the van up and headed south east to the forests north of Williams and on the eastern side of Albany Highway. The first night at a place called Pomphreys Bridge, nice but large armies of ants forced to move on. So we did, spending the next 2 nights in a Parks WA campsite which despite the rain was very pleasant. We were the only people there and the camp featured gas barbecues, toilets etc at $13.20 per night.....not bad eh? Then we moved on to a very nice farm just north of Williams on Albany Highway, but the heavy rain convinced us to go home on the Friday.

Then last week which was to be a chemo week. However that was not to be, Elaine's Monday blood test showed various deficiencies and a second blood test on Wednesday confirmed that result. So we left home at 8am, got to the hospital at 9am, after a short wait had the blood test and waited for the results and a decision by our medical team. Then they mixed up some blood and Elaine had a transfusion to fix some of the issues, but no chemo. We then had a visit with our pain specialist and finally got home at 4pm without having had the chemo that we set out to get 8 hours earlier.

Never mind Elaine is still travelling well, albeit with some noticeable pain and this week is another week. Hopefully today's blood test will show good results and the chemo will go ahead as planned.

In the meantime all this sitting around is encouraging yours truly to look for things on the internet and accumulate toys. So far the trumpet, although I already had that and just had to service it and get a couple of accessories. Then the drone and now a small trailer sailer trimaran. Maybe they will keep me busy enough not to accumulate any more.

I know 2 blogs in one day is a bit much but there you go, we have proper phone coverage here.

Here is the Gnaala Campground about 30kms north of Williams in the Dryandra Woodland. It is a Parks WA site and is both fairly new and well looked after. It is also empty except for us and is set amongst tall mallee trees with properly laid out parking bays and is a very pleasant place. The wind is quite strong so we have positioned ourselves to avoid any large branches that may seperate themselves from their mother trees.

Now on to the lady, she is currently sleeping and in fact following much the same routine as she does at home. Exercise is coming by way of frequent walks to the toilets etc, even though we have excellent facilities on board. Using their facilities during the day gives us both additional exercise. Elaine's pain level in her groin is up a bit, but overall she is still doing well and I hope that this break will be good for her.

Blog February 6

Well we have taken a little break during the chemo off week and this place where we have stopped supposedly has coverage. It has but very very as in ridiculously slow.

Anyway as you have now guessed Elaine is still handling the chemo with minimal side effects. This time has knocked her about a little but nowhere near what we had been led to believe was possible. So here we are at Pumphreys Bridge Lions Park all by ourselves. The park has 2 toilets, a CWA meeting house, a river (barely flowing at this time of year), a kids playground, tennis courts and us. The town appears to be nonexistent so I don't know where the Lions and tennis players come from. But it is a break from routine and sleeping beauty, who had a little drive today, is currently doing her sleeping thing.

Yours truly has had a little drone flying and photographing and after this blog will probably continue reading Harry Potter. We might move tomorrow aesthete seems the be large battalions of ants here.

Elaine is doing well as evidenced by the range of activities in which she chooses to be involved. Shopping we take for granted as the first activity that any red blooded female does. Then we have by choice had lunch at the club and cheerfully babysit our granddaughters as often as possible, the latter is of course more a privilege and pleasure than a mere activity.

There are still issues such as nausea, tiredness and bits and pieces that hurt. but these are so much reduced in intensity that life is starting to get back to somewhere near normal. Or maybe simply a damnsight better that it has been. Elaine is still unable to drive and that annoys her somewhat, even though her chauffeur is quite happy to be just that.

We have restarted the second chemo treatment with day 1 of the first cycle last week and day 8 of the same cycle on Wednesday. It will be really nice if the side effects remain as limited as they have been, fingers (and everything else) crossed.

I have just been reminded that I haven't done a blog for 8 days, sorry about that.

Not much has happened in the last week or so. We are just relaxing and waiting for Elaine's bloods to recover a bit, then we can start the second round of chemo. Chemo affects the blood in all sorts of ways some of which, like the red blood cells, can be treated by blood transfusion.  She had a transfusion early January with her chemo. But others, like the neutrophils which are part of the white blood cells, need time to recover and further treatment would make it worse. So we wait and plan for the treatment to restart next week, provided Monday's blood test meets the appropriate criteria.

The only issue during this period has been a very sore tooth, attended to firstly by our breakthrough medication. Secondly a visit to the dentist has seen that there is no real problem and that the issue is caused by Elaine's bite being out of kilter and exasperated by the large amount of sleeping and the lowering of white blood cells. So once again time will be the fixer upperer.

We remain positive, in fact quite thrilled at results to date and Elaine continues to make extensive use of her bed.

Nothing new to report, we are just being careful knowing that Elaine's infection fighters are on the low side. Other than that she is great, just a few relatively minor issues to deal with.

Bit of a setback today. Elaine's neutrophils, which are the blood things that fight infection, are low so this round of chemo has been cancelled and will now start in 2 weeks time. This is why she has a blood test the Monday before each of the chemo sessions to make sure that everything is at the proper levels. She has now gone to bed with a headache, which I trust is not the forerunner of an infection.

This all keeps us on our toes!

Well now this is something, I am writing (or typing) this blog in the Starcevich ward at Hollywood while Elaine is being treated by the very efficient nurses here. This is a very busy ward and I would think a difficult assignment for the nurses. They would need to be very knowledgeable and dedicated the handle the pressure and the clients.

Anyway now to the detail. This is day 1//1/2, in other words the first day of the first segment of Elaine's second round of chemo, which will hopefully be as effective as the first round. Prior to each treatment up here Elaine had a blood test which guides the treatment. In this case her hemoglobin is low so a litre of blood will be added to,the imfusion.

So now she will sleep while it happens and I will go for a walk.