Thursday, 5th March

Day 63 - Stem Cell Transplant

Unfortunately the temperature that Jimmy spiked yesterday afternoon spiked all night.  He has been put on intravenous antibiotics for 5 days and had x-rays done today because Prof Novitzky and Dr Fine are concerned that it is his chest again.  When I left we had not had the results of the x-ray back yet.

Jimmy is not in a good place at the moment.  As you can imagine, he is feeling extremely down because he thought he would be coming home in the next few days.  I explained to him that it is better that he got sick whilst in hospital because I am sure it would be much worse if he had been at home.  They can also catch it so much quicker in hospital.  He did manage to get up and have a shower and then spent some time sitting in the lazy boy but his energy levels are very low and he was very out of breath.  After lunch today his temperature was fine and Dr Fine is happy with this as it could mean that he is on the correct antibiotic.  They have sent off bloods for a culture but these take a few days and only show up about 50% so will consider anything coming back a bonus.

Jimmy is not eating at all and we are trying to get him to drink 4 shakes a day so that he gets some nourishment and doesn't lose any more weight but I think Jimmy is just so tired of being sick and wants to come home now.  He didn't even want to talk today and was very close to tears a couple of times.

This has been an extremely long road for Jimmy and I just wish he would have a positive turn now.  I am so disappointed as I really thought we were moving forward.

I had the most amazing night's sleep last night.  A whole 7 hours without any funny helicopter dreams or interruptions.  Our fires in Noordhoek have completely settled down.  The wind is howling but we have spotters on duty for the next 2 or 3 days to make sure that any flare ups are dealt with quickly.

Some of the other areas are still battling fires but nowhere is as bad as it was 2 days ago.  Unfortunately a fire that started in the Cape Point Nature Reserve yesterday morning as a result of the lightning bolt that we had just before the heavens opened, and we were all so thankful for some rain, took a turn today and emergency personnel and helicopters have been there all afternoon trying to fight it.  As I said the wind is very strong and at this point it is heading toward Scarborough.



Here you can see the extent of the fire damage - over 3000 hectares

 



The Cape Point fire is indicated by the flame and the wind is
pushing it towards Scarborough/Kommetjie.  You can see where
this is in relation to where the fire has already burned just above
Fish Hoek.  We are on the bottom edge of the black area (Noordhoek)

Here is an amazing video inside the flames with our fire fighters:
http://m.ewn.co.za/2015/03/04/Inside-the-flames




We were all so thankful for the little bit of rain that we had yesterday which helped a lot to put out all the little smouldering areas.  Quite sad to think that it was a lightning bolt just before it rained that caused this new fire.