The week before Easter was the second time Pippa has successfully made her 4 week chemo cycle. The continual adjustment to her medication seems to be right for the time being meaning her blood and her body’s processing of the toxicity of the drugs is finally as it should be. Whilst I still live day to day, for the first time in 10 months, whilst I can’t plan, I can at least think a little further ahead.
I didn’t think this girl could amaze me any more, yet last week she did it again. We were juggling treatment with school holidays, visitors and Easter. After another very long day at the hospital on the Monday we came home prepared for the gripping, horrible pain that seems to be the normal first 48 hours of treatment. Nothing! Not even a hint of pain! By Wednesday I asked her if maybe she thought there was a mistake and the capsules were perhaps empty and the syringe just filled with water??? She shot me a look and asked, “Do you want to taste this disgusting stuff?” No thanks!
Thus, we had a great school holidays and lots of fun with all our visitors.
This Easter was also our first Good Friday Appeal as a patient and a family of the Royal Children’s Hospital. That was hard for me. Every time I turned on the TV or opened the paper it was there. It’s hard enough living your own struggle without being constantly reminded. We put coins in the collection tins at all the traffic lights we drove through, Pippa and the boys went out to the street when the SES vehicle drove by and gave them a stash of money, but I didn’t want to hear or see anything.
The Royal Children’s Hospital is amazing; the staff, nurses, doctors, specialists and volunteers are incredible. I wish the only way I knew that was from seeing the Good Friday Appeal on television. Instead I can’t walk through the foyer of that beautiful building without seeing someone I know.
In July last year I kissed my precious daughter goodbye and let her go in for massive and dangerous brain surgery and I have now entrusted her medical future to her oncologist. I know first hand the stories of that hospital and I am grateful every day for the skills and knowledge of the people at RCH who now form part of our daily lives.
In Pippa’s words, the best thing in the world would be that no child ever had to go to the Royal Children’s Hospital and that every child could live a normal life. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen, but at least we are so very lucky to have the Royal Children’s Hospital and all that it does for children.
Pippa Rea 