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Saturday, August 23, 2003
brittany & leukaemia - 08:51 AM
i finally managed to catch up with my sister, monica, yesterday in regard to how brittany's doing. since they found out on monday that she has leukaemia, monica's been staying in the hospital with her while greg has been looking after kelsey at home & bringing her into the hospital to visit mon & britt every afternoon after school.
britt had been sick with a flu for a little while. she wasn't getting better, so after continued trips to the doctor to put her on stronger antibiotics, they carried out some tests. one of the tests showed that almost all of her blood levels, white blood cells, haemoglobin etc, i don't know what they all are, were very, very low. after seeing these results they figured it was either a very bad virus, or worst case scenario, leukaemia. the next test, a test of the bone marrow, confirmed everyone's worst fears, that it was leukaemia.
of all the types of leukaemia they know of, britt has the best of the lot, if there's such a thing. hers is acute lymphoblastic leukaemia which they say, in children, the treatment has an 80% to 90% success rate. this is good news which we are all holding onto. any possible postives are good things. the whole situation is terible, but we have to focus on the postives or we'd all fall apart & be no good to anyone.
they began chemotherapy on thursday. apparently the first eight days will determine how the rest of the course of treatment is taken. the usual way is that it is carried out over two years. if her body handles it well over the first eight days, then they'll continue on that course. if not, then i assume they take it a bit slower, giving her body more time to recover between each session.
i think that britt is probably handling it the best of all us. since she's only four (turning four on the 30th of this month, actually) she would tend not to think long term. monica & greg & the rest of us adults think about the horrible treatments which she has to endure, as well as painful bone marrow tests every two weeks or so (i'm not sure if that goes on for the whole time) amongst other awful things, over the whole two years or so of treatment, but for britt, even though the experiences are still awful, she'll be taking it one horrible experience at a time. i guess the ignorance of youth is a blessing in this case.
on top of the financial costs of having britt in hospital & the cost of all the treatments over the two years once she's allowed to go home, mon & greg also had to deal with greg taking time off work to take kelsey to school & pick her up every day, not to mention the added stresses of looking after her at home by himself while monica is staying in the hospital with britt. some of that has been solved. the parents in kelsey's class got together all on their own & arranged between themselves a roster to take her to & from school & to look after kelsey before & after school so that greg won't have to lose so much work time. as you can imagine, mon & greg were really touched. what a lovely & very practical gesture. as insular as our lives are these days compared to what life might have been like in the past, there's certainly something to be said for community in situations such as these.
i know that many of you out there are thinking positive thoughts & praying for britt & her family. i really appreciate it. please continue to do so. anything positive is a good thing & can only help the situation. i only wish that i wasn't so far away from them (they live in sydney, i'm in brisbane) so that i could be of more practical help than simply a phone call to mon every now & then to buoy her spirits. if i wasn't on the verge of popping a baby out, i'd probably go there immediately to help out as much as possible. in the meantime, i'll do what i can from here. i suppose the joy of a new baby (soon) will help to take their minds off these currently awful things, so once rudegere is born, i'll try to get mon & family involved as much as possible by sending pictures & keeping in touch.
when i spoke to mon last night, they'd just arrived back from the front desk where my aunty (mum's sister) & her family had had a smiley face helium balloon & some flowers delivered. britt loved the balloon of course. little things like that will help her to stay happy & healthy. 
My heart aches for all of you. I expect Brittany to get through this, the odds are certainly for her. Luckily, as you said, a four year old only thinks in the immediate so gifts and goodies to keep her appetite and her spirit up will make the day a good one for her. It will be much harder for her parents. Just think positive thoughts, you know, the power of positive thinking and it is contagious too.
I really hope that little Britt will be ok - I'll be sending heaps of positive thoughts her way :o)
I think I need to send my bithday twin a little birthday gift
Best wishes for the little girl. All things are possible through Christ!
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that is really lovely about taking kelsey to school.
i am glad that there are good chances of brittany getting through this!