TIME FLIES

It's hard to believe that Brendan has finished his first term at school. Sadly he never made it through a full week but has enjoyed school and seems to be getting everything he can get out of the time he is there. We take each day as it comes and decide on how much time he will spend at school on each day. It is impossible to plan for anything. The Camp Quality puppets recently visited Brendan's school to give a educational puppet show on children with cancer. Brendan felt a little overwhelmed and Mum managed to keep the tears back in front of the school.

Brendan's overall health is slowly getting worse. He is often tired and overcome with exhaustion. His fevers and joint pains still give him a hard time. The medication we are giving him at the moment helps with the fevers but has not helped as much as we would of hoped with his quality of life.

Sydney is running another international bone marrow search to see if anyone compatible has come onto the register in the past 8 months. Our fingers are crossed.

On Friday, Brendan will have his 5th bone marrow biopsy. His last biopsy had a blast cell count of around 12%. If it reaches 20% then it is described as Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

At the moment we live in 'limbo land'. We are waiting for the right time to go ahead with a transplant. Unfortunately, Adelaide's accreditation to be a non family transplant unit has come to a stop for the moment due to the difficulties of politics and bureaucracies. It looks like we will be going to Sydney as planned.

The doctors are talking about when do we 'cross the line' and decide it is time to go ahead with the transplant. While some of our options in relation to Brendan's illness and having a transplant are very clear, some are about as clear as mud. We are hoping that the next biopsy will give us a better idea of what we should do next. If his marrow is stable then we have another 3 months until the next biopsy. If not, then we need to make a decision as to whether to go ahead with a transplant or not. Sometime in the future we will not have an option and Brendan will need a transplant as his illness will become life threatening.

While all the yucky stuff goes on, Brendan and his family are having a great time enjoying all sorts of great activities.

We recently had a great weekend away as a family on a Camp Quality Family Camp. We spent the weekend with 7 other families. The parents were not allowed to cook, wash up or do any jobs for the weekend. The family got to go horse riding, learn archery, feed farm animals and do lots of fun activities. We all had a great weekend.

We won't leave it for so long next time and will let you all know the outcome of Brendan's marrow biopsy as soon as we know.

Cheers from Brendan, Anna, Richard, Tara and Kieran.