Hi - just a short one today.
Hormone treatment is continuing and Ali gets her next 'top up' on Tuesday.
Mid February she will be getting another CT scan to see whether the tumours have progressed at all. Depending on the results there are two pathways we are considering.
If all looks good and the tumours have not grown, it is most likely that we will continue with the hormone treatment. If not, then it will be off to Sydney to pursue the SIR-spheres.
Hope you're all enjoying the nice warm weather! For all those outside Australia, it has been HOT! 40 degrees + for nearly a week in Melbourne & Adelaide (46 yesterday) and in the high 30s for Canberra. I'm not too sure what Ali is complaining about as I've trapped in an air-conditioned office for most of the week. Something about it being too hot, kids running around like lunatics and that it's too hot. Did I mention she said it was hot?
Hopefully it will cool down by the weekend.
School is back next week. Can't say that the kids are too excited but then I don't really like it when my holidays come to an end either.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALISON!!!
It's Alison's birthday today, she is turning.....I can't say as it wouldn't be polite (but 1973 was a great year).
There will be dancing...
and balloons...
...and fireworks.
Hope you join with me in wishing her a happy birthday and that you have a great day as well.
FYI - for those of you who don't know, Alison has declared that her birthdays officially run for a full week so if you are talking to her, you can wish her a "Happy Birthweek" from now until next Saturday.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Happy New Year and best wishes for 2009
Hi all again.
Already January is rolling on way too fast. I hope that everyone had a great New Year's Eve and that you are poised for a wonderful 2009.
Since the last post, not too much has been happening. We enjoyed our time in Sydney and Annelise & I made the most of the good weather and beach with swims in the mornings and late afternoons.
New Year's Eve was a quiet one for us. We had a friend visit but only just made it to see the fireworks at midnight (asleep by 12:16am). I was even down at Bunnings around 9:30am the next morning, shows what an old codger I am becoming when I'm even awake that time on New Year's Day, let alone at Bunnings.
Since then the kids have had a few nights down at Mollymook visiting my parents and we took advantage of the situation and had a dinner out at a nice Italian restaurant.
Kids are now home and just doing holiday things like visiting friends etc., while we put up with some warm weather, 36 degrees or so for yesterday, today and forecast for tomorrow. Must say, it's not so bad being stuck in an office working when the temperature is so warm.
For me, work is back on but it feels like I only just left. It's tough getting up and motivated in the morning but then, you have to do what you have to do.
Ali is doing well, and as mentioned in the previous blog, we are moving ahead with the SIR-sphere treatment with further tests due later this month.
Stay well and I'm planning to post some recent pictures soon.
Already January is rolling on way too fast. I hope that everyone had a great New Year's Eve and that you are poised for a wonderful 2009.
Since the last post, not too much has been happening. We enjoyed our time in Sydney and Annelise & I made the most of the good weather and beach with swims in the mornings and late afternoons.
New Year's Eve was a quiet one for us. We had a friend visit but only just made it to see the fireworks at midnight (asleep by 12:16am). I was even down at Bunnings around 9:30am the next morning, shows what an old codger I am becoming when I'm even awake that time on New Year's Day, let alone at Bunnings.
Since then the kids have had a few nights down at Mollymook visiting my parents and we took advantage of the situation and had a dinner out at a nice Italian restaurant.
Kids are now home and just doing holiday things like visiting friends etc., while we put up with some warm weather, 36 degrees or so for yesterday, today and forecast for tomorrow. Must say, it's not so bad being stuck in an office working when the temperature is so warm.
For me, work is back on but it feels like I only just left. It's tough getting up and motivated in the morning but then, you have to do what you have to do.
Ali is doing well, and as mentioned in the previous blog, we are moving ahead with the SIR-sphere treatment with further tests due later this month.
Stay well and I'm planning to post some recent pictures soon.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Chistmas/New Year Post
Hello at last. It's been just over three weeks since the last post and life has been pretty busy with everything leading up to Christmas.
To avoid boring you all with the details, I'll get straight into things. I'm on leave from 24/12/08 and back on 5/1/09. Things are pretty busy at the moment which is good in many ways.
We are currently staying at a friend's house in Manly Vale while they visit Tasmania. We are having a great time and very much enjoying the beach lifestyle (except for Ali who hates sand, wind, water and sun - she gets to enjoy some peace while I take the kids to the beach!).
For New Year's Eve, at this stage it looks like it will be a sensible time and we will be back home in Canberra. We are heading back tomorrow (30/12) so there will be time to settle in and rethink whether to be sensible or not.
As far as news on the health front goes, we are hoping to get Ali in to see a specialist on the week starting 19/1/09 to talk further about the SIR-spheres and determine when we can go ahead with a treatment for Alison. She is continuing on her hormone treatments and is generally feeling pretty normal.
Kids are enjoying the holidays a lot. Annelise has forgotten which way around she is meant to be writing the letter 'k'. Despite this, she is looking forward to school next year with her new teacher.
Harrison is not as keen to get back to school but is still excited about having a male teacher for when he starts at Grammar next year. Then again, he remembers which way the 'k' should go as well.
Harry is not so bad and is doing lots of reading.
To avoid boring you all with the details, I'll get straight into things. I'm on leave from 24/12/08 and back on 5/1/09. Things are pretty busy at the moment which is good in many ways.
We are currently staying at a friend's house in Manly Vale while they visit Tasmania. We are having a great time and very much enjoying the beach lifestyle (except for Ali who hates sand, wind, water and sun - she gets to enjoy some peace while I take the kids to the beach!).
For New Year's Eve, at this stage it looks like it will be a sensible time and we will be back home in Canberra. We are heading back tomorrow (30/12) so there will be time to settle in and rethink whether to be sensible or not.
As far as news on the health front goes, we are hoping to get Ali in to see a specialist on the week starting 19/1/09 to talk further about the SIR-spheres and determine when we can go ahead with a treatment for Alison. She is continuing on her hormone treatments and is generally feeling pretty normal.
Kids are enjoying the holidays a lot. Annelise has forgotten which way around she is meant to be writing the letter 'k'. Despite this, she is looking forward to school next year with her new teacher.
Harrison is not as keen to get back to school but is still excited about having a male teacher for when he starts at Grammar next year. Then again, he remembers which way the 'k' should go as well.
Harry is not so bad and is doing lots of reading.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Update on blog statistics
A while ago I wrote a short post when we reached one thousand visits. Well, it's time for a quick update!
We are now at over 4,000 visits since we started with 550 unique visitors from 16 countries having viewed the blog. All up that accounts for over 3 days' of continuous viewing
I truly hope that you find this a useful way to keep up to date and to stay in touch with what is going on in our lives.
As a quick reminder, if you respond and leave a message via the blog, we don't have any direct way to respond to you personally. While Ali is very grateful (and humbled) by all the response and interest through this website, it is hard for us to acknowledge everyone.
If it is convenient for you to send a message, please feel welcome to send them through to pike.at.work@gmail.com. I will get these messages directly and be able to respond to you individually (unless you are being sneaky and hiding your email) or you can email Ali directly at aapike@tpg.com.au.
We are now at over 4,000 visits since we started with 550 unique visitors from 16 countries having viewed the blog. All up that accounts for over 3 days' of continuous viewing
I truly hope that you find this a useful way to keep up to date and to stay in touch with what is going on in our lives.
As a quick reminder, if you respond and leave a message via the blog, we don't have any direct way to respond to you personally. While Ali is very grateful (and humbled) by all the response and interest through this website, it is hard for us to acknowledge everyone.
If it is convenient for you to send a message, please feel welcome to send them through to pike.at.work@gmail.com. I will get these messages directly and be able to respond to you individually (unless you are being sneaky and hiding your email) or you can email Ali directly at aapike@tpg.com.au.
Next couple of weeks
OK, from the last post you may have gathered that we were at a bit of a junction with regard to choice of treatments. Matters have progressed somewhat since then but we are guessing our way through many things and still trying to fully grasp what is ahead of us.
That said, we feel pretty confident that with the advice of our doctors, we are on the best possible path. From here, we have decided to progress with just the hormone treatment for the time being.
This means that Ali gets a 16 gauge needle in her stomach every couple of weeks for the hormones (plus oral hormones which really, are not much of a problem - like hey! what's 23 pills instead of 22 each day). For those who understand how needle measurements work, no further explanation is required. For those who don't know a 16 gauge from a 6 gauge, let's just say that Ali needs 2 or 3 local anaesthetics before they get to the 'real deal'. OUCH!! (On top of this, she is continues to get her bone drugs so she still has to put up with the cannula with each treatment.)
On the bright side, there is no more sickness from the chemo and this Christmas should be 'normal'. The chemo that was scheduled for Christmas Eve is no more and we are looking forward to a happy and exciting day.
As far as other matters go, there's only two weeks of school left! Who could believe it? Kids are getting just that little bit older (as we all are!) and immeasurably smarter and more mature. Surely our parents didn't have to put up with kids growing up so quickly?
The Christmas nut in Alison has come out and we've had our Christmas tree up and decorated since well before the start of December (not quite flowing on from Father's Day like the shopping centres but not too far off). Most of the Christmas presents are settled and we are hopeful of stretching the spirit and magic of the season for at least this year, although with an 8 year old, it is seemingly harder and harder as each year rolls on by.
As a short aside, Alison prepared a fantastic meal tonight. For those who say that scientists have absolutely no imagination or creativity (humble apologies to Alison for my views on this), Ali managed to whip up a fantastic cous cous salad accompanied by a breast of chicken marinated in Portuguese spices. Absolutely delicious!
That said, we feel pretty confident that with the advice of our doctors, we are on the best possible path. From here, we have decided to progress with just the hormone treatment for the time being.
This means that Ali gets a 16 gauge needle in her stomach every couple of weeks for the hormones (plus oral hormones which really, are not much of a problem - like hey! what's 23 pills instead of 22 each day). For those who understand how needle measurements work, no further explanation is required. For those who don't know a 16 gauge from a 6 gauge, let's just say that Ali needs 2 or 3 local anaesthetics before they get to the 'real deal'. OUCH!! (On top of this, she is continues to get her bone drugs so she still has to put up with the cannula with each treatment.)
On the bright side, there is no more sickness from the chemo and this Christmas should be 'normal'. The chemo that was scheduled for Christmas Eve is no more and we are looking forward to a happy and exciting day.
As far as other matters go, there's only two weeks of school left! Who could believe it? Kids are getting just that little bit older (as we all are!) and immeasurably smarter and more mature. Surely our parents didn't have to put up with kids growing up so quickly?
The Christmas nut in Alison has come out and we've had our Christmas tree up and decorated since well before the start of December (not quite flowing on from Father's Day like the shopping centres but not too far off). Most of the Christmas presents are settled and we are hopeful of stretching the spirit and magic of the season for at least this year, although with an 8 year old, it is seemingly harder and harder as each year rolls on by.
As a short aside, Alison prepared a fantastic meal tonight. For those who say that scientists have absolutely no imagination or creativity (humble apologies to Alison for my views on this), Ali managed to whip up a fantastic cous cous salad accompanied by a breast of chicken marinated in Portuguese spices. Absolutely delicious!
Monday, December 1, 2008
Chemo cancelled
We saw the oncologist today. Unfortunately, with the results from last week's scans showing that the tumour in Alison's liver was still growing, it seems that the chemotherapy was not doing its job. And if it's not working, then there is no point in putting Alison's body all through the hassle of side-effects that come with chemo. Thus, we are stopping the treatment.
Next options discussed with the doctor painted three potential pathways.
1) Try an alternate course of chemotherapy and hope that works to reduce the size of the tumour. Thoughts are that given the failure of the first two regimes, probability of this approach being effective are reduced.
2) Start on hormone treatment. Previous tests have indicated that Ali may have a positive response to hormone treatment. It was always intended that she would have hormones at some point, it was just that we were hoping to shrink the tumour first with some chemo and then go with them. The intent of the hormones is to hold the cancer at a stable level for as long as possible.
3) Undergo treatment with SIR-spheres. Essentially an injected radiotherapy treatment where small particles of hair are combined with radioactive material and injected in the blood vessels of the liver (see http://www.sir.net.au/SIR_pi.html for more info). This is a relatively new treatment and it's good to see that it's an Australian innovation. It's not available everywhere so we would need to swap away from our regular doctors for treatment.
Options 2) and 3) are not mutually exclusive and can be undertaken together. At this stage, Ali has already started on the hormones and we are considering whether to push ahead with option 3) as well. The doctors need to confer amongst each other to get their heads straight about what is the best approach and we also need to consider what we think is best. Hopefully, within a week or two we'll know which way to go.
To finish on some good points, there was no evidence of new growths and the doc said that it wasn't the fastest growing cancer she had seen. Ali is generally pretty healthy (cancer notwithstanding) and is getting to feel a bit better now that the last chemo treatment was nearly three weeks ago.
Next options discussed with the doctor painted three potential pathways.
1) Try an alternate course of chemotherapy and hope that works to reduce the size of the tumour. Thoughts are that given the failure of the first two regimes, probability of this approach being effective are reduced.
2) Start on hormone treatment. Previous tests have indicated that Ali may have a positive response to hormone treatment. It was always intended that she would have hormones at some point, it was just that we were hoping to shrink the tumour first with some chemo and then go with them. The intent of the hormones is to hold the cancer at a stable level for as long as possible.
3) Undergo treatment with SIR-spheres. Essentially an injected radiotherapy treatment where small particles of hair are combined with radioactive material and injected in the blood vessels of the liver (see http://www.sir.net.au/SIR_pi.html for more info). This is a relatively new treatment and it's good to see that it's an Australian innovation. It's not available everywhere so we would need to swap away from our regular doctors for treatment.
Options 2) and 3) are not mutually exclusive and can be undertaken together. At this stage, Ali has already started on the hormones and we are considering whether to push ahead with option 3) as well. The doctors need to confer amongst each other to get their heads straight about what is the best approach and we also need to consider what we think is best. Hopefully, within a week or two we'll know which way to go.
To finish on some good points, there was no evidence of new growths and the doc said that it wasn't the fastest growing cancer she had seen. Ali is generally pretty healthy (cancer notwithstanding) and is getting to feel a bit better now that the last chemo treatment was nearly three weeks ago.
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