Wednesday, 17th September

Thank you to everyone who made Jimmy's birthday so special.  Sunday was an awesome afternoon with friends coming to visit.  He really was so chuffed and it definitely was made to be a birthday to remember. Such a pity that there were quite a few people who were unable to visit because they were all sick with this terrible flu doing the rounds and this includes everyone in my family.  You were all missed.

Yesterday, which was Jimmy's birthday, was another wonderful day with lots of phone calls.  It was nice to have the children pop in during the late afternoon too as well as Rohan and Patsy.  Jimmy was very spoiled, thank you for all your presents and beautiful cards with such positive words, Muis and Murray in particular.  Thanks to Komatsu Bellville for the lovely basket full of goodies and to all Jimmy's friends who chipped in for a weekend away in Franschhoek.....I hope he takes me with ;).  And another special moment was when Stan arrived here first thing in the morning with my Brush Works staff who all sang happy birthday to Jimmy from the driveway while he looked out of the window.

Jimmy had his last chemo treatment of the second cycle on Monday which went well.  As I expected, the Neupogen injection's effect did not last too long and his white blood count was already back down to below normal levels again. His red blood counts as well as his haemoglobin have also started to drop now but I am sure this is also to be expected, considering that in total he has now had 6 cycles of chemo twice a week for two weeks each.  Dr Fine was busy with high care and isolation ward rounds so we did not get to speak to her about why Jimmy's M protein readings have risen.  I phoned yesterday and today, also with no luck.  And now our appointment with Prof for Friday has been cancelled as he will be away so we see him on Monday afternoon after Jimmy has his first treatment of the 3rd cycle.  I did tell them today that we cannot wait a week and a half for some kind of explanation as to why we are, basically what we feel is, going backwards!

Jimmy was very down yesterday morning as we heard on Monday that he needs to apply for temporary disability - of course this news was impeccably timed for the day before his 50th birthday.  At this stage we don't know what this all entails as up until now he has been working from home. We have the daunting task of filling in 16 pages of information and of course Prof Novitzky also has some forms to complete.  We are busy making a list of all the questions that we have, to understand this all better.

Quite strange really how a birthday should be a joyous occasion.  Please don't get me wrong, Jimmy loved having everyone around, but it was also another stark reminder of what we are faced with.  In April/May this year he was promoted at work and 5 months later he has turned 50 and in this time he has been diagnosed with cancer.  We are very positive and will forever remain positive but as we stand now, the reality is that we do not know what the future holds.

 I feel so helpless as we are so not in control of any of this.  I see that Jimmy has had allot on his mind this week and I so wish that I could take it all away.  Life can be so unfair and he definitely doesn't deserve the lemons he is being handed.

And this is a special little message to Loren - hurry up and get better my Angel so we can see you again , we love and miss you lots xx