Monday 31st January 2005

Christian had a lump in his tummy so we took him to Jake McKinnon, the pediatrician who originally diagnosed his reflux a year ago. He was immediately concerned and we took him for an ultrasound and an x-ray which seemed to confirm a Wilms tumor in the kidney (details here). Blood and urine tests were taken. Keith Holmes is a pediatric surgeon who happened to be consulting at the same surgery on that day and he agreed that this was the most likely scenario and referred us to the Royal Marsden Hospital.

Tuesday 1st February 2005

We took him to the Marsden where we met Kathy Prichard-Jones, she is the professor of pediatric oncology and happens to run a large team of researchers who research Wilms tumors. Wilms tumors have been "curable" for 20 years or so and 90% of children apparently make a full recovery. The treatment is chemotherapy for a few weeks, followed by surgery to remove the kidney and growth followed by more chemotherapy. He would need to have a biopsy and a CT scan to confirm that it is Wilms tumor and that it hasn't spread anywhere else (unlikely from the fact that he is acting happy).

Wednesday 2nd February 2005

Keith Holmes performs a biopsy at St. George's and fits a portacath (a direct access to the bloodstream for drugs and removal of blood). Christian woke up a bit upset but was happy for most of the afternoon.

Thursday 3rd February 2005

Went back to St. George's because a urine infection had been detected from Monday's tests. Antibiotics administered intravenously and orally. Christian a bit niggly today...

Friday 4th February 2005

(Very) Good news - CT scan confirms no spreading of cancer into lungs or, in fact, anywhere else.(Slightly) Bad news - biopsy shows sign of muscle in the tissue, this means it is either a variant of Wilms tumor (fetal rhabdomyoblastic) or it is a completely different cancer (rhabdomyosarcoma). This other cancer would be treated in the same way as a Wilm's tumor so Kathy Pritchard-Jones suggests we start on the chemotherapy straight away. It would be very unusual for rhabdomyosarcoma not to have spread out of the kidney so Kathy still feels that the Wilm's tumor is the far more likely problem. They will do more analysis of the biopsy to help decide. Christian had his first lot of Chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden at about 5.00pm.

Tuesday 8th February 2005

10.00am - Christian is not reacting very well to the chemotherapy. One of the side effects is a sore jaw, and this seems to be making him uncomfortable when he eats and drinks. The doctors were a bit concerned so we brought him to St. George's Hospital last night and Claudia and he stayed the night. He has been on a drip to rehydrate him and we are now waiting for more news. 10.55am - We are taking him back to the Royal Marsden for further checks.

Wednesday 9th February 2005

I stayed overnight with Christian at the Royal Marsden. The main concern is that he is not eating or drinking. In order for him not to get dehydrated he is on a drip and they are considering putting a tube down his throat so they can nutrients into him. It's not as bad as it sounds, he's a bit niggly, but not too uncomfortable and is sleeping well.
Claudia is going to stay there with him tonight. We are not sure how long he will stay in hospital, he will be allowed home when he is drinking on his own. He is now neutropenic (has low blood white cells) from the chemotherapy so he can not have paracetamol. He has been on Codeine and Morphine as pain killers and will hopefully not maintain a recreational taste for them.

Thursday 10th February 2005

The good news is that he has started eating and drinking, mostly chocolate and biscuits, but at least he is feeding himself. We should be able to take him home tomorrow. The less good news is that the pathologists have finished deliberating and have decided that it is, after all, not a Wilm's tumour. They have decided that what he has is a clear cell sarcoma of the kidney. This is a lot less common than a Wilm's tumour (about 5% of Kidney tumours).This kind of cancer is a lot more prone to spreading, we know it hasn't spread to the lungs but now they need to check that it hasn't spread to his brain or bones. They will need to do a bone scan, a CT head scan and take a sample of bone marrow. Kathy Pritchard-Jones feels that from his behaviour it is very unlikely that any spreading has occurred. All these test will be done next week. Assuming no spreading the prognosis is very similar to Wilm's tumour but he will need a far longer period of treatment post operation (probably about a year of chemotherapy). They will bring the surgery forward to reduce the risk of the cancer spreading before surgery. The date currently suggested is the 23rd February 2005. He will probably need to stay at St. George's Hospital for about a week after the operation.

Friday 11th February 2005

We are still hoping to take him home later today as he is off the drip. He has a bit of a rash on his face from an adverse reaction to the drug that he was given to reduce his blood pressure. He is due a course of chemotherapy, and they want to monitor his reaction to that as well as how he fares without the fluids drip. If all is well we'll bring him home, Henry will be happy to see him again!

Saturday 12th February 2005

The doctors decided to keep Christian in for further examination as his blood pressure was a bit high. The good news is that he was released earlier today and we are now home.

Sunday 13th February 2005

I almost didn't update the site today because there is no real news. But I guess you may like to know that Christian has been in a lovely mood for most of the day. (Auntie) Sam and (Uncle) Paul came around and he spent most of the day happy and was very excited with his dancing Dora the Explorer doll.

Thursday 17th February 2005

You may remember that Christian was due in hospital today to have a head scan and have a sample of bone marrow taken. He needs a general anesthetic for these and he unfortunately is not well enough to have it. He has a bit of a temperature and his breathing is a bit too fast, they suspect it's a chest infection. He has been given antibiotics and will be staying in the Royal Marsden for a night or two for further observations. We hope to reschedule those two tests for when he's better. We still hope to go ahead with the bone scan tomorrow. Next Wednesday's operation should still go ahead as planned.

Friday 18th February 2005

Christian has still been a bit unwell today so he's been given antibiotics. The good news is that he managed to stay still for the CT head scan without anesthetic, and that was negative. The bone scan and bone marrow sample will have to wait until Monday. His chemotherapy will wait until tomorrow too when , hopefully, he'll feel better. Christian will soon look just like his dad; his hair has started to fall out so I'm taking my clippers in tomorrow and he'll get a grade 1!

Monday 21st February 2005

Christian has been much better for the last couple of days. The antibiotics seem to have cleared up the infection and he is eating and drinking, if somewhat selectively. He had the operation today to take a sample of bone marrow and we should get the results for that tomorrow. He also had a tube put down his nose to make it easier to feed him, this lasted about 5 minutes after he came to, when he pulled it out. Oh well; he's eating well at the moment so it's not a major problem, we may have to try that again. Unfortunately there is not enough time for the bone scan now until after he recovers from the operation on Wednesday (when the kidney and tumour get removed). We should get the results from the bone marrow tomorrow. We should take comfort from the fact that the doctors are very confident that the cancer hasn't spread and I guess the fact that he was playing football with his Nana this evening should confirm that. Tomorrow we are taking him to St George's in the afternoon were he is getting some tests to prepare him for Wednesday's operation. We should be able to bring him home for a night before taking him back to the hospital were Keith Holmes will perform the surgery. After the operation he may stay there or be moved somewhere else for recovery. By the way, I did take my clippers in yesterday and cropped his hair, and he does look like his dad. He also looks like he lives in a caravan and has a dog on a string. I'll take a photo of him tomorrow and share it with you...

Tuesday 22nd February 2005

We took him from the Royal Marsden to St George's this morning for some blood tests. He will have the operation there tomorrow morning. We are now home and as he was in such a good mood I took some photos to show you the new haircut (here they are).By the way, Claudia received this from a family friend in the US who is a cancer specialist...

From: Terrie Pustilnik [mailto:tbpmd@swbell.net] Sent: 19 February 2005 2005 17:35 To: 'Claudia Blandford' Cc: harold.behrman@yale.edu; bob.parish@enscitech.com Subject: RE: Christian I hope Christian's tests have come back OK. I am praying and thinking about him daily. There is a very recent article looking at clear cell sarcoma of the kidney in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (deb vol 22). They had 40 children and were trying to compare 2 different ways of doing chemotherapy. The chemotherapy that they were using was vincristine, doxorubicin and dactinomycin. The patients ranged in stage from 1 through 4. (Stage is determined by seeing if there has been any spread of the cancer or not). Stage I is early and Stage IV means there has been spread . Patients had surgery and usually some radiation therapy to the area where the cancer was following surgery. It appears that the longer chemotherapy treatment was associated with a longer survival time. The overall 8 year survival was very good at 87%. This means that even though your son may have an aggressive cancer, the odds are in his favor that he is going to do well. (But he may be in for a fair amount of treatment).

Christian is hopefully stage 1 or 2, so this sounds positive.

Wednesday 23rd February 2005

The surgery seems to have gone very well, Christian was in theatre for 5 hours. The surgeon, Keith Holmes is confident he removed all the tumour. It was 10cm x 15cm and 1.1Kg, almost 10% of his body weight. He is now recovering at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at St. George's. Here are a couple of pictures (picture 1 and picture 2). I have come home for a couple of hours and will be going back to spend the night with him there. Claudia will be home tonight.

Thursday 24th February 2005

Christian is now out of intensive care and into his own room in St George's. The phone number there is 0704 6200076 (x3517), Claudia is there tonight. He is sleeping lots and whimpering a little bit but is being kept comfortable by pain killers. Most of the tubes and monitors that he was on yesterday have gone so he looks a lot less scary. We may be moving him back to The Royal Marsden or The Portland in the next couple of days if he is well enough. The prize for "best tough love e-mail" goes to Neil Gillespie for the following...

Great to hear all went well. Just imagine if it was you and 10% of your body weight. They’d need a crane!
Neil

As if coping with cancer in your child wasn't enough....

Saturday 26th February 2005

We have, remarkably, been sent home. To quote the surgeon, "it is a record breaking recovery from a five hour operation". Photos here

Monday 28th February 2005

A few people have asked me how Henry is coping with all of this. This evening, just after I put him to bed I asked him if anything was worrying him. Henry said "Yes, when Christian grows up will he be a man without any hair even on his legs?". I explained that after the medicine stops, his hair will come back and by the time he is three he will be back to normal.
He seemed happy with this but then said something else was worrying him, I asked him what it was and he replied "When I grow up I don't know if I want to be an astronaut or a normal man, because I want to be both".
Now there is a conundrum. Christian is well. A bit delicate, but recovering well.

Thursday 3rd March

Christian was due back at the Royal Marsden today for a bone scan. The idea was to give him a sedative and then he would fall asleep and would lie still while the scan took place. The doctors even hoped that he would remain sleeping as they inserted a nasal gastric tube. Unfortunately two doses of sedative were not enough and Claudia had to hold him down as the scan took place. The good news is that the bone scan was all clear and the results of the marrow test last week were clear too. So all the tests have been done and there has been no spreading of the cancer that they can see outside of the kidney. The pathologist's report on the kidney also came back today. It confirmed the fact that it was a stage 2 clear cell sarcoma. The plan for post operation treatment has now been drawn up. He will be taking 3 different types of chemotherapy drugs, one which is weekly for 6 weeks and the other two are every three weeks for 6 months to all run concurrently. There will be no need for radiotherapy. Bearing in mind we were expecting chemotherapy for a year this is very good news. He took one dose today and next Friday he will take the first triple dose. All the treatment is being done as an outpatient at the Royal Marsden. Christian has lost quite a lot weight recently, which is why the doctors are keen to get nutrients into him with the tube up his nose. He has, however, started eating again and we are hoping this continues so he builds up his strength for next Friday.

Tuesday 8th March

Just a quick note to say that Christian has been very happy for the last couple of days. He is eating and drinking well and is looking much better. He is a lot stronger than he has been for the last month and is walking around and playing normally. He is very giggly and has spent a lot of the time doing this.

On a separate note, Claudia and I would like to thank all of you for your kind words, generous gifts and kind hearted actions over the last few weeks. We are very fortunate to have so many thoughtful friends and such loving families. Claudia is panicking that she has not written any thank you letters, but I guess that's Claudia...

Thursday 17th March

I have started to get calls from people asking me to update the site and I guess I shouldn't just write when there is a problem. Christian is still pretty good, he had a couple of niggly days after the chemo, but he is now pretty happy most of the time. For some reason he has taken to waking up at 5.30 - 6.30 am every day, but that is not a major problem. He is going in on Friday for a dose of Vincristrine (the weekly chemo drug) and we are hoping he continues to be a robust as he has been so far.

Monday 21st March

Christian had a high temperature yesterday so I took him to St George's. I spent the night with him there and he has now been transferred to the Royal Marsden after much pleading from us. He has to stay in hospital for a couple of days as he needs intravenous antibiotics. The chemotherapy knocks the white blood cell count which makes it difficult for him to fight infections without help. We are hoping he'll be back home later this week. Claudia is currently at the Royal Marsden with him.

Wednesday 23rd March

Claudia brought him home today. He seems a bit better; as he is going in to the Marsden tomorrow for chemo, they were happy for him to spend the night at home.

Thursday 24th March

Claudia took Christian down to the Royal Marsden today for his chemotherapy. Unfortunately he's not very well so they have decided to keep him in. I'm on my way down there to take over and Claudia will be home tonight. The phone number of our room should still be 0702 8301719.

Friday 25th March

I have just brought Christian home. He has a nasty cough but they think that it is viral, not bacterial and therefore not any more dangerous than if he wasn't neutropenic. Claudia is taking him in for a checkup on Sunday morning to make sure that he is still OK. Henry and I will be going off together for a week's father/son bonding on a ski trip which was booked months ago. I thought about canceling it but Claudia wouldn't let me, and if she did, Henry would never forgive me!

Sunday 3rd April

Henry and I returned from the slopes today (photos here). Unfortunately Christian has not been well in our absence. The portacath (a tube fitted to an artery near the heart to allow access the the bloodstream) has become infected. He and Claudia have spent all of the week at The Royal Marsden where he has been on antibiotics.

He needs a further 10 days of treatment which, apparently, he has to finish off at St George's, apparently they need the beds at the Royal Marsden for chemotherapy treatment. We are not very happy about this as The Royal Marsden is far more comfortable and, we feel, he gets far better care there.

We are trying to find an alternative hospital or another arrangement, for example a private nurse to come to the house and administer the antibiotics 4 times a day.

We should find out tomorrow what the plan is. The good news is that the antibiotics seem to be working and he is very happy in himself at the moment. He has had an nasal gastric tube fitted which looks a bit scary but is providing him with lots of nutrition overnight to build up his strength.

Tuesday 5th April

Christian came home today. He has been given an oral antibiotic instead of an intravenous one and, as such, he does not need to go into hospital for it. He seems in pretty good spirits, if a little bit disorientated.

Tuesday 19th April

I've just got back from a night with Christian on the ward at St George's so forgive me if this all comes out as a jumbled mess. All weekend Christian was very happy, eating and drinking well and generally having fun. Sunday night something hit him and he was throwing up during the night. He was due to go to The Royal Marsden for a checkup and some drugs to boost his white blood cell count on Monday so we went early and spent all day there. He had a slightly high temperature and he was given some antibiotics.

By the end of the day he seemed a bit better so we were sent home with the strict instructions to phone if his temperature "spiked" again. By 9.00pm his temperature was up to 38.7 and however hard I tapped the thermometer it wouldn't go lower. As Claudia spent a lot of Sunday night up with Christian, I took him to the ST George's Hospital.

He has now been given two more types of antibiotics until they get results of blood tests which show what particular bug he has. One of the concerns is that he may have either an infection in his portacath or the same infection has come back from a couple of weeks ago. If this is the case he may need to have an operation to have it replaced.

If, however, it is a different infection it may be treatable at home by either oral antibiotics or by once a day intravenous antibiotics that the community nurse would administer.

The care at St George's was very good last night and although it is not as comfortable as the Royal Marsden it wasn't too bad.

Friday 22nd April

We got back from St George's yesterday. Christian is on intravenous antibiotics once a day which are being administered by a community nurse. He has the same bug as before (an infection of the portacath) but the doctors are hoping that a full intravenous course will clear it up. If not he will have to have an operation to remove and replace his portacath and will be back at St George's for a week or so.

My mother asked for more photos in the guestbook and as I am far too scared to ignore her, here they are . There is also a bit of video here for those of you who have broadband.

I am doing a 10km run on the 3rd July (details here). I have been wondering what would be the best place to raise money for and have decided after our stay at St George's that the money will have most effect there. There is a ward called the Pinkney Ward which takes most of the kids with Cancer and they have their own charity administered by the very efficient Sister in charge. You can stipulate where you want the money spent and, depending on how much I raise, I have some good ideas. First on the list is some high chairs (there are none) and black out blinds (Christian wakes as soon as the sun comes up) but I have plenty of other ideas if I raise more.

Morgan Stanley, my very understanding employers, have offered to match anything I raise up to £2000. Claudia and I will personally do the same, this means your generous donation could be worth 4 times what you give. To offer some money send me an e mail or even better sign the guest book to publicise your generosity and encourage others.

Thanks in advance...

Friday 29th April 05

Christian has been home all week, is eating and drinking well and seems very happy. We are waiting for the antibiotics course to finish this weekend to see if his infection comes back or not. If it does come back, there may be no option but to return to St George's to have his portacath removed and replaced. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

The good news is that the sponsorship is going fantastically well. Claudia's company Porcelanosa have very generously offered to match sponsorship for £2,000 too. Morgan Stanley will match £2,000 per employee involved so we may persuade them to match all the money raised by getting more of my colleagues to run! All good stuff.

Sunday 2nd May

Good news and bad news: the good news is that Christian has been in a fantastic mood for the last couple of days, he was very taken with his cousins Elizabeth and Thomas who came around for a barbecue yesterday (Elena took some photos here and here).

The bad news is that the blood cultures from Friday's blood tests show that the bug in his portacath has not been cleared up. He will need the portacath removed in an operation, then a series of antibiotics and then the portacath replaced in a different operation. He will probably go into St George's tomorrow for the first operation.

His hemoglobin levels are a bit low too so he's going in to St George's for a blood transfusion this afternoon, which will take a few hours.

Saturday 7th May

Christian had an operation on Thursday to take out the portacath and came out on the same day. He's got a canular in his hand (a needle and tube) which is being left in as he needs more antibiotics. We are taking him back to St. George's this afternoon for the last dose and they also want to take some bloods to make sure the infection has cleared up.

Claudia is taking him to the Royal Marsden on Monday to discuss the next stage and we'll find out when the portacath is going to be replaced then

Wednesday 11th May

We were in St George's today for Christian to have an operation to have a new portacath fitted. He is now home and all is fine. The only drama was that an antibiotic was given too quickly (it should have been an infusion over an hour and it wasn't) and he got "red man syndrome". This meant he swelled up and was his skin was very itchy, some drugs soon cleared up the problem.

Claudia is taking Christian back to the Royal Marsden tomorrow for a triple dose of chemotherapy. He is now just having the three weekly triple dose, and no longer has the weekly single dose.

The good news is that we are now halfway through his treatment. All down hill from here...

We were hoping to be heading to our villa in Spain tomorrow for a week's relaxation over half term. Unfortunately Christian's neutrophils are a bit low. This means that even though he is very happy at the moment, he is susceptible to infections, and a it's not advisable for him to be too far from home.

This means our villa is free for the next two weeks and we'll be happy if anybody can make use of it. The details are here www.villabegur.com. A small contribution to the sponsorship fund may be required depending on financial circumstances!

Saturday 4th June

Christian went to the Royal Marsden yesterday for a triple dose of chemotherapy and some tests . As he is now over 12kg (just) he had the full dose, until now he has been on 70%. It seems to have hit him fairly hard and he's been a bit sickly today not being able to keep food or drink down for long. We're hoping this doesn't last long as if there's a danger of him getting dehydrated he'll have to be admitted to hospital so he can get IV fluids.

The good news is that both tests that he had yesterday (a chest x-ray and an ultra sound) were clear.

Sunday 19th June

We made it through the difficult bit after the chemotherapy by giving Christian water from a syringe every 10 minutes, which he managed to keep down. He is now happy again and is eating and drinking well. There are now only a couple of weeks left to the run! As you can see from the total at the top of this page the sponsorship is going fantastically well.

This will make a real difference to the comfort of the children being treated at St George's. I have discussed the money with the sister in charge and the ideas so far are :

1. New curtains and blackout blinds
2. High Chairs
3. Bed Pans (they can't get any on their budget!)
4. New child friendly decor or pictures
5. Children's cutlery and plates
6. New toys and budget to replace toys when they get damaged

Thanks again to all of those people who have generously pledged sponsorship. It's not too late if you have not yet got around to it, just send me an e mail by clicking here or even better sign the guest book by clicking here.

Because there are now 9 people running from Morgan Stanley, they will match up to £18,000! so your donation could be worth twice what you give.

Monday 3rd July

First things first, Christian has been pretty well recently hence the lack of updates. His hair is growing back a bit and his speech is coming on very well. In true Blandford/Parish style, it is now tricky to keep him quiet.

Yesterday was the 10km run that I have been talking about. I managed to drag myself around the full distance in a leisurely 56 minutes, and have been barely able to move since. There are photos here.

If you were kind enough to sponsor me please send a cheque to me at
home.

I am Gift Aiding the whole amount raised as though it was a donation from me to save on paper work so please make all cheques payable to me. If you would prefer to make a cheque direct to the charity (St George's Charitable Foundation) please contact me for a gift aid declaration form.

Thanks to your generosity and Morgan Stanley's matching, the Pinkney ward at St George's will receive over £45,000. It should make a real difference.

Friday 15th July

Christian was due to be having his chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden today. Unfortunately he has had a high temperature since yesterday afternoon which is a sign of infection. Claudia took him to the Royal Marsden where they started him on antibiotics and then brought him to St George's where I am spending the night with him at the, now famous, Pinkney ward.

He has had a bad day with Claudia and was quite upset most of the day. Fortunately for me, by the time I arrived the antibiotics had kicked in. They have taken bloods and will grow cultures to try to identify the bug so they can decide what the best antibiotic is for the job. That will probably take a couple of days.

We were hoping to go to Begur in Spain Monday, and my mum and sisters and all their families were joining us there next week for another week. We are still hoping to get there for the second week to join my family.

There are some more pictures of me in pain here. Don't I look like I'm having fun?

If you want to laugh at pictures of any other of the runners you can look for them here.

Most of the money has come in now, thank you very much. If you were kind enough to sponsor me and haven't got around to paying please either send me a cheque or e-mail me for my bank detail for direct transfer. For what it's worth Christian finally fell asleep tonight at 9.00pm when the sun started to go down. I wish those blackout blinds were already here...

Sunday 17th July

We've had a couple of nights at St George's with Christian and he has been put on oral antibiotics and sent home. It took that much time because the doctors wanted to make sure that it was not a serious infection which would need more heavy duty antibiotics and he kept "spiking" temperature.

We will be going to the Royal Marsden tomorrow and if he is well enough they will give him the chemotherapy he didn't have Friday. Henry is very excited because now that it's school holidays he'll be coming along, and they've got great toys there.

Claudia keeps bleating on about the fact that she and Christian were taken from The Royal Marsden to St George's by ambulance and I haven't mentioned it. Apparently it was very exciting.

While I was at St George's, I spoke to Francis, the nurse who will administer the money we have raised. As the amount raised has grown, its effect will become more significant. They, apparently, got turned down a year ago for a grant to improve the treatment room which is seriously in need of modernisation. This will now be possible.

They are also getting a new waiting room (until now parents have had to wait in the kids play room until a bed is available). Whilst the room has been allocated for the waiting room, the money wasn't there for chairs and curtains and so it has been delayed. This should now be taken care of.

Monday 18th July 2005

The chemotherapy went ahead at The Royal Marsden today. Unfortunately there was a complication with one of the three drugs. One of them is a slow drip over 4 hours and the needle slipped out of his portacath in the last few minutes and leaked into him. Bizarrely enough the chemotherapy is far more dangerous out of the bloodstream than in it and so Christian will have to stay in overnight so he can be monitored. He needs to have cream applied every 2 hours, it will feel, to him, like a burn beneath the skin.

Claudia will be spending the night with him but we have been told he should be released in the morning. We hope so as tomorrow is his second birthday. We have no real plans as we were hoping to be in Spain but we'll certainly have more fun at home than at the Hospital...

Tuesday 19th July

Well he's home. We need to pop back to the hospital tomorrow to make sure he's recovering from the chemo leak but are still hoping to fly to Spain in the evening .

He's enjoying his birthday so far and we're having a little party for him later.

Tuesday 2nd August 2005

We made it! photos here

Sunday 18th August

Christian has been very well recently, hence the lack of updates, here's a recent picture. His last chemotherapy is scheduled in less than two weeks, which is an important milestone that we've been looking forward to.

I have finally collected all the sponsorship money at the final amount raised is over £47,000. Thanks very much to all of you for your support. I have received a couple of letters from St. George's which were very nice, they are here and here.

Sunday 23rd October

Christian had his last chemo three weeks ago. He got a temperature on Thursday evening when he was still neutropenic from the chemotherapy. We took him into St George's and he has spent the weekend in and out, getting regular intravenous antibiotics. The doctors think that it is probably viral and will therefore not be a problem for his body to fight but it takes 2-3 days to discover if an infection is bacterial. The protocol is to treat it as though it were bacterial (hence the antibiotics) until proven otherwise. Hopefully by this evening no signs of bacteria on the blood samples taken on Thursday will mean that he is in the clear and we can stop the course of antibiotics.

He was quite poorly on Thursday but has been fine for the last couple of days. Hopefully this will be the last time that we have to go into hospital for something like this...

On a side note, it is very rewarding to go back to St George's and speak to the nurses who are so happy with the money I was given as sponsorship. The money has not yet been spent but I am convinced that it will really help. Thanks again for your generosity.

Tuesday 15th November

All is good in the Blandford household at the moment, Christian has become a dancer. Here is a video clip, it is a big file (15meg so don't bother unless you have broadband).

January 1st 2006

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