Meeting Sarah-Jane

The biggest treat of the year by far took place on Saturday..... Meeting the screen goddess of CBeebies Sarah-Jane Honeywell. Francesca and I went to the Horniman's Museum here in Forest Hill to meet Sarah Jane, it was fantastic!

When we first walked in Fran gave Sarah Jane a little shy wave but by the end of our time she had Sarah Jane running around racing and generally going crazy with her. Sarah Jane hadn't been to the museum before which was great as Fran took it upon herself to give her the grand tour! Francesca felt so very special and is so glad to have her new friend (who gets on telly with the help of the magic fairies don't you know!) Sarah Jane has also organised complimentary tickets for Fran and her friend Tegan to go to the CBeebies Live event at Wembley this Christmas, the tickets are VIP ones so they'll get to meet other CBeebies presenters and characters. We are so pleased for her and so grateful to Sarah Jane - it made the end of a really rough week worth it!

Here are the photo's.... Yes, it was cold and Fran's scarf did need to be wrapped around 3,000 times! Oh, and Sarah Jane's web site is http://www.sarah-jane.biz/.

Francesca's Current Treatment

As I chatted to a friend yesterday she was surprised that Francesca is still having chemo as I had previously said in the blog that she wasn't due any treatment until January next year. To clarify, Fran still has a 'big' chemotherapy drug once a month (Vincristine). At that time she receives five days of steroids - this will happen every month until the end of her therapy in April 2009. She also gets daily oral chemo at home every day unless altered by GOS. In January she'll go to GOS for a lumbar and to see her consultant.

This week then was the week for all of the above! On Tuesday we went into Lewisham to receive the therapy and start her steroids - I have to be very honest and say that it has been a terrible week. As I have mentioned before, Francesca is sensitive to all the drugs she receives and this week was no different. She has been suffering with bad joint pain in her legs and the steroids have a horrible effect on her. Fran isn't able to rationalise things when on the steroids and everything is a BIG issue. She cries a lot and feels terribly sad and says that everything is her fault. This isn't true but that's how she feels. Stuart and especially me have found it really emotionally hard this week. Everyone very kindly says how well she is looking (and she is) now that her hair is returning and she has colour in her cheeks but, the reality is that she will have to go through this process every single month until she ends therapy. On top of this, I have had to chase and chase our local hospital to get the drugs ready on time. Some months we will cope with it better and some we won't!

I feel a little bit bad about posting a more negative post but want for you to understand that it isn't all plain sailing and, at the end of the day, if Francesca doesn't continue to receive this treatment the Leukaemia will return. We plod on and very much look forward to the Christmas break.

On a more positive note Francesca is having an AMAZING treat tomorrow. She will be meeting Sarah Jane Honeywell (the royalty of CBeebies - if you have kids you'll get that!!), she is very excited!!!!! I will post photo's over the weekend so you can see just how big Francesca's grin will be!!!

Tricks and Treats!

Firstly, I know! The blog update has been a long while coming - sorry to all!

Francesca had to go into Lewisham hospital a couple of weeks ago as she'd spiked a temperature and had no immune system. They started her on three different IV antibiotics which seemed to do the trick. The problem for us was that we had organised a halloween party for her and her friends on the Wednesday and she was still an in patient. After some discussion and to my relief Lewisham agreed that she could go home for the party with her friends. She was discharged the following day anyway.

Fran's party was a winner - she had an absolutely fantastic time. All her friends came dressed up and played all the games including marshmellow in flour, hand in jelly etc. You can see from some of the pictures that they all had a ball.

Last week we were at Great Ormond Street where Francesca had a lumbar, she is still neutropenic so hasn't had any oral chemo for a few weeks but they felt she'd be fine for the lumbar. That all went well and the good news is that we won't be going back until January 15th!

Francesca has only six weeks left in nursery and then after Christmas begins Reception. It's all working out well with her treatment as she won't miss too much school.

Charlie has been poorly for the last week and then yesterday had a febrile convulsion caused by a high temperature. The doctor seems to think that it is just a virus so he should improve as the week goes on.

The pictures here are of Francesca and Charlie at the beach a couple of weekends ago and of Fran's party.