22 September 2008

Big Surprise

It was a huge suprise last night when I told Kiara that we were going on our holiday. Her teacher had called me on Friday and prefered me to tell her myself. Kiara resembled a rubber bouncing ball. Luckily there was no breakage of furniture or home. She still does not know any details about the travelling party. Another suprise awaits her when we arrive in Montego Bay.

I had an excellent meeting with Dr. Lips last week in which I heard that my Thyroblobuline count has gone down to 3770, about the same level we were at a year ago. Everything that I lost this past year has been regained. More hope for a future!
My radiation therapy has been postponed because the Doctor forgot to plan my treatment. Well, I am not even going to bother to get furious about that. I will look into that again when I am back.

I have more on less finished all my chores around the house, so I have a calm day tomorrow and then I am of to 30 degrees and a lot of family warmth.
I will have internet acces and will try to keep my blog up from there. See you all later!

16 September 2008

Computer Crash


My computer has crashed. I have lost thousands of photographs and documents. Acces to my weblog has become difficult but I am working on a solution. The past two weeks have been all about preparation for our trip to Jamaica. At last, we will be going! I have commited myself to rest, rounding off treatments and getting my house tidied. Finally after a year of doing chore by chore, my home has reached the status in which I left it on February 12th of 2007. With people in an out of your house one becomes internally displaced. It is aggrevating if your body then gets in the way of putting things back in order. Patients, progression and a little help from my friends got me here in the end. Now, I am kind of happy that I did not go to Jamaica in the summer when I was not ready to go. We leave next week wednesday for a 4 week holiday. It is going to be one big fest as we are suprising Kiara with the fact that Aldith, my parents, my aunt Tirza, Carola, and Jocelyn and her clan will all be there too. It has been really hard keeping this secret for so long, but next week monday Kiara's teacher is giving her and her alone, a load of homework. I am hoping on her feeling the unfairness...she will not protest for sure, but I do hope that she will ask why she is getting that much work. The teacher will then tell her that she is off to Jamaica in two day. That is the last place where she expects to hear this.
Physically, I am much stronger than in July. I am also free from treatments for the next month or so which will give me a chance to actually have a break from all this. I am particularly happy that Marcus will be joining me.
The two of us will have some time together as Kiara will be in good hands.

All in all, the prospect of the next month is awesome.

Until next week I have a few more visits to the doctors. If all is well I will have one more session of radiotherapy on my arm. We will not be continuing radiation therapy for my head after the holidays as the results look really good. The bump on my head is getting flatter all the time and my brain has more space to float around in. My balance is back 100% and frankly, I feel OK. Only my eye is worrying me a bit. The eye-lid keeps closing. A trip to the neuro-surgeon and the optician have not revealed what the problem is. I have to go back to the neurologist to check if it has anything to do with the muscles.

I am not sure if I will be on here again this week seeing as the computer problem has not been solved yet, but I will certainly keep on writing once I am in Mo'bay.

02 September 2008

Bird on perch

Bird is trying to rest on her perch but Gustav seems to be influencing the turbulence over Hilversum. I had my second radiation treatment to my shoulder just two weeks ago and it seems to be helping. I have gained mobility and lost a little bit of pain. A visit to Dr. Lips has given me a boost. As Marcus my family and I believed, Dr. Lips came to the conclusion that we should not give up the Iodine treatment yet. The Octreotide test (a very small amount) has had me suffer side effects up until now and they can only administer it twice, leaving me with few options afterwards. Facing the end of my treatment is not where I want to be going now. Seeing as the Iodine still has some effect, we have come to the conclusion that I will go for another treatment at the end of October. This means that I can focus on my holiday. Apart from my shoulder which will be treated with radiation therapy just one more time, we have decide that a short period of rest would do me alot of good. I was very relieved and satisfied about the choices made. Lips has taken to my Bodystats (excel sheet) and will use it as a tool in the future. All in all, the treatment is going the way I want it to. I am happy to not have moved to the AVL hospital for my Iodine treatment, as I did not feel comfortable with Dr. de Boer at all.

Last week was a very busy week. My friend Ineke had her jubilee so I spent alot of time getting things done for that. Friday my nephew, André and his girlfriend Kamilla came to spend the night. We had dinner at Restaurant Voldaan in Hilversum which was really sublime and later on Marcus joined us.
I was extremely tired and not to happy when an old lady flew into the side of my car with het bicycle as I was waiting to cross the road on Saturday. That is the third accident in less than two years that I have had with my car while standing still. I wonder if they really want me dead? One on the back , one on the front, one on the left....I will be watching my right!
The whole administration is a real bummer. I hate anything that wastes my time these days.