After settling them in, we headed to the hospital for our meeting with the oncologist. We stopped at a Turkish cafe on the way to be surprised by the music being played as it was all Greek!
We arrived well in time to work out exactly where we needed to go. Unfortunately our Neuro-oncologist is high in demand and it was nearly two hours from the time we arrived until we saw him. That said, it was worth the meeting. Our appointment went for some time, given having to go over the history, etc., pluswe had a lot o questions for him. He was very patient, nice, open and honest, and forthcoming with a great deal of information. Maria was extremely disappointed to learn that her hair may never grow back.
Her chemotherapy will actually commence on Monday (8 Jun) and the dose will be double that she was taking in Israel as she is on a 5 day on, 23 day off cycle for the next 6-12 months. Prayer point - that she will respond well to chemo in terms of: a positive effect, minimal side effects, and blood (white cells, red cells, hemagloben, platelets) will not drop significantly.
Given her move into the next phase of chemo, after the appointment we immediately met one of the nurses he referred us to, so we could be linked into the community nursing system. The nurses we met were lovely and gave lots of information and resources. They are contactable 24/7 and should Maria suffer nausea or vomiting beyond what we can control, we have been supplied with ampoules of maxalon so the nurse need only turn up with a syringe. Prayer point - that this won't be necessary.
After a visit to the pharmacy to collect more drugs, we grabbed a quick bite to eat as we hadn't had anything all day and needed to rush to the kids' school to collect them as we could think nothing worse than being late on their first day.
We got to school on time. The kids wanted us to be late so they could spend more time in the playground. Far too cold for us. I have even started the fire at home.
The kids were both keen to do their homework. Not sure how long that will last!
