Last weekend we bought the kids their first full Bibles. They are both Study Bibles in the NIrV (New International Readers Version). Both have been very excited and each night since have been delving into brief studies on Maria’s bed before their bedtime. It has also been helpful for them when doing readings at “home church” I’ve been running over the last couple of Sundays. Interestingly their favourite books of the Bible come from the Old Testament—Ben’s being ‘Joel’ and ‘Esther’ for Gabi.
Without having any medical appointments in the first half of the week, we were able to have our dear friend Sue over for lunch as she and her husband Ron (the Minister of the church we attended before heading overseas) prepare to retire and move away from Canberra. It was a blessing to have that time together. We were also blessed to have attended Ron’s retirement dinner held at the church the previous weekend. There were so many people we hadn’t seen for ages. It was a lovely event. Maria was absolutely exhausted by the end of it though. The kids were exceptionally well behaved, but were also very fatigued by the end of the evening.
We also had the owner of a joinery (highly recommended) come and look at our kitchen as we want not only a new kitchen but a complete overhaul of the space. Peter has owned the company for 27 years and in addition to having the majority of his tradespeople on the books for 20+ years (good sign), they project manage all works, which is going to be helpful for us as we will need some serious renovations done. We will see the initial plans this week and get an estimate of costs, which I know will not be cheap.
We became busier later in the week with some medical appointments. The first appointment was with the Infectious Diseases Control professor. He, like all the specialists we are dealing with, is very nice. We discussed some of Maria’s more recent issues of joint pain and insomnia. He thought it could be related to the antibiotic and recommended we cut back the dose in the hope that the cerebral abscess has gone by now or is close to healing. As you cannot differentiate tumour from infection in an MRI or CT, he will monitor to see how Maria copes. As she is going to be on oral antibiotics indefinitely then if these side effects continue, the professor will consider changing the antibiotic. We also took this visit as an opportunity for Maria to have her “Day 21” blood test for this chemo cycle.
We met with the Neurosurgeon on Friday morning and he put Maria through a reasonably detailed examination. He will manage “the scans” (MRIs, CTs), with the next MRI planned for in 6 weeks. He had a quick look at some of Maria’s blood test results and said they would be discussed in more detail with the Oncologist, but from what he briefly examined, what he was interested in looked fine. Praise God!
I saw Maria’s GP in the afternoon to discuss some administrative issues associated with my time off work.
Going back to the ‘side effects’, although the joint pain has not changed till now, her sleep has vastly improved over the past couple of days.
Gabi spent most of the day having a play date with her dearest of girlfriends. Apparently they both planted 60 flowers between them at a local church’s garden bed in about 40 minutes. As Gabi was out for most of the day, Ben and I took the opportunity to have “boys time” together. We kicked the football around, did a big grocery shop, and went car ‘window’ shopping. We spent about 1½ hours in the cold walking around checking out a range of new and used cars. I was happy to quickly look and move on before being accosted by sales reps, while Ben wanted to examine every car in detail (especially the new cars we couldn’t afford) at every location. He got a lot of enjoyment out of the experience. I think we are still a little way off from getting something we want in our price range.
Ben has his athletics carnival in the morning (Gabi’s will be in November). He is looking forward to it and even signed up for the 800m cross-country (early event) without him having any expectations, which is a nice change. Unfortunately the weather forecast is not looking favourable at this stage.
In the morning we will be dropping Ben off at the sports carnival venue without being able to hang around, then dashing to get Gabi to school before heading to the hospital for Maria’s appointment with the Oncologist (09:40am local time) to check the blood tests in more detail and I assume prepare for her next cycle of chemotherapy, which starts on the 10th. For any of you reading this before the event, we would be grateful for your prayers.
We hope that if Maria is up to it for a little while, wee may be able to pop across to the carnival after the medical meeting to see how Ben is faring.
