Brrr.....we are in for a freezing weekend in Cape Town. As I type, it is storming outside and many of our roads are already flooded. The temperature has dropped and it has been dark all day. Snow has been forecast to fall on Table Mountain tonight and tomorrow morning.
Jimmy had chemo this morning but only the Velcade. His white blood cell level is still too low to have the orange one, Endoxan. One of the side effects of Endoxan is that it lowers white blood cell levels and Prof doesn't want Jimmy's to drop any lower as he will then be high risk for infection again.
After waiting two months for the go-ahead for Zobone, the authorisation came through this week so Jimmy had his first dose today. Zobone will be administered once a month, intravenously for 12 months and what it does is bind the surface of the bones to help prevent further bone loss.
We were officially introduced to Dorothy today, although we have seen her many times flitting in and out of the chemotherapy clinic. She is also always involved with Prof Novitzky when he does a bone marrow biopsy. Dorothy works in Prof Novitzky's haematology laboratory and is the Haematology Technologist. She is responsible for the successful harvesting of stem cells and looks after the whole procedure of separating and cleaning them and then dividing the harvest in half. They then get frozen until they are needed for the stem cell transplant. The second half is kept for if and when Jimmy comes out of remission, which means he doesn't have to go through the whole procedure again (well, most of it). She was quite sweet in the way she explained it to us. She said we have 5 children who are our babies and the patients stem cells are her babies which she has to look after as stem cells are immature blood cells.
What to do on a wintry weekend like this? That's easy....couch, blanket, pudding, cappuccino and DVDs. And then of course there is soccer, rugby and tennis to watch. My three favourite things this weekend? Jimmy, Keira our Staffie and the heater.
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