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.