We are now in the second week of Niamh's radiotherapy treatment. She was happy to see the team at the Cancer Centre yesterday and to show off her new shoes, look everyone at my brand new pink shoes! This week's characters on her sticker book are Charlie and Lola. She is pleased.
The treatments yesterday and today have gone well. Every morning she has a little play with the train track, then I take her to the radiation room where the team is waiting. There are usually a minimum of 5 of them. I sit her down on her bed, take her top off and put her little blanket on. She smiles at them all. Then she lies down, the anaesthetist puts the mask on her face and she holds my hands. She looks around a little and then calmly goes to sleep. She is amazingly brave and cooperative. Whilst it does make it easier on me and the team, it is in a way sad that she is so used to it all.
Today we were allowed to go into the control room to see what they do once they have got her into position. It all look pretty complicated. The first 21 days of her treatment they radiate all her head and spine. The last 12 days they will give a boost to the area where the original tumour was.
We were a bit surprised with Niamh's blood results today:
Haemoglobin: 11.6 which is good.
White Cells: 1.8. Low.
Platelets: 139. Ok but down from 200 last week.
Neutrophils: 0.9. Very low, considered neutropenic, ie. very weak immune system.
We were told her haemoglobin level may be affected by the radiotherapy but her white Cells and neutrophils shouldn't be affected much. The radiotherapist have reassured us that it is normal for counts to fluctuate and not to worry. (hmmm, easier said than done). They will do another blood test on Friday.
On the whole Niamh has been well over the last couple of days, she is impressing us with her standing and walking without splints. Her crawling seems better too. She was doing better with the sickness yesterday but was sick once this afternoon. Hard to tell if it is a bug or not. Emilie was off sick today as she had a temperature last night and has been complaining of a stomach ache today. Happy days!
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