Thank You............

.................for all your thoughts and prayers, much appreciated, let's hope they work.

 I've got over  the reality shock  so we've just been carrying on, one day at a time, keeping busy, although because of the speed that his white blood cell count is increasing Col is running out of energy, even with the steroids.  Someone asked if this really was the only 'choice'  and yes it is at the moment because all the things tried so far haven't worked. His only other option would be bigger doses of one of the chemo drugs tried last year,which didn't work then and neither he nor the consultant want to do that.
 The new drug he will be taking is called Venetoclax, it's been used mostly in the US and very successfully against CLL Lymphoma and also tried on Mantle Cell Lymphoma, which is what Col has. Only a handful of people in this country are taking it.
If it works and when the white blood cell count is low enough he will have a donor stem cell transplant from a sibling.
He'll get a phone call later today to say what time they want him in. The first thing they do is to give lots of fluids for 24 hours before starting the tablets. He might have to go in each time the dosage is increased, it depends what reaction he has. The big risk is Tumour Lysis Syndrome this is when large amounts of the cancerous cells are killed releasing uric acid, potassium and phosphorous into the bloodstream too quickly. This is why they now start on a very small dose and increase it week by week.
The consultant said he was very excited about being able to trial these new tablets, we said excited wasn't the word we would use!

Anyway,  we've trying to keep things as normal as possible which meant going to a car boot sale on Saturday afternoon at the Leisure Centre in our nearest big village. I was very pleased with this little grandchild sized chair for £3 and the box of Brio type railway for £5.

 Then Sunday we went for Mother's Day lunch at our son and daughter in law's home - lovely roast lamb - he's a very good cook.
On Monday we went to visit our youngest daughter and little Florence. We took  a Jumparoo which I won off ebay for her ( I hadn't heard of them until Eldest daughter told us about the one she borrowed for Jacob). She thought it was great fun and was soon worn out from all the bouncing.

After visiting A and Florence it was up to hospital so Colin could have the picc line put in, this is the way they can give antibiotics intravenously and take numerous blood tests while he is being closely monitored at the start of the drug..


Keeping busy has involved more garden clearing, I've finished forking and weeding my way across  veg. bed # 1, a little at a time as I'm so out of gardening practice.  We've sown lettuce and beetroot seeds in Veg bed#3 and planted the potatoes in bed #4, leaving space for 2 tripods of beans. Veg bed # 2 is still full of weeds, that's my next job. With much less space than at the smallholding we have to decide what's best to grow both from the freshness and expense point of view.
The soft fruit bed is cleared and ready and waiting for the arrival of two gooseberry bushes and I decided to use part of it for asparagus too. My cucumber, tomato, pepper, aubergine and basil seedlings have been pricked out into bigger pots - in the conservatory during the day and indoors at night. There's no sign of leek seedlings and very few lettuce seedlings coming up in the greenhouse. May have to try a different packet of leek seeds.

Latest reading was Problem at Pollensa Bay, a collection of Agatha Christie short stories with some characters I'd never heard of before- Harley Quin and Parker Pyne. Looking through the lists at the back of the book there seem to be quite a lot of short stories and collections that have been republished very recently.
Followed by a brilliant book by Rory Clements called Corpus...........this is what The Fantastic Fiction website says about it............


1936. Europe is in turmoil. The Nazis have marched into the Rhineland. In Russia, Stalin has unleashed his Great Terror. Spain has erupted in civil war.

In Berlin, a young Englishwoman evades the Gestapo to deliver vital papers to a Jewish scientist. Within weeks, she is found dead, a silver syringe clutched in her fingers.

In an exclusive London club, a conspiracy is launched that threatens the very heart of government. When a renowned society couple with fascist leanings are found brutally murdered, a maverick Cambridge professor is drawn into a world of espionage he knows only from history books. The deeper Thomas Wilde delves, the more he finds to link the murders with the girl with the silver syringe - and even more worryingly to the scandal surrounding the Abdication .

A very well written and gripping novel, which I really enjoyed. It says in the back that he is writing another featuring the same character. I've now run out of library books so have started The Winter is Past by Noel Streatfield which is one I bought from Grey Ladies Publishing last year.

Onward and onward we go, I'll keep blogging as it's another way of keeping busy.

Back Soon
Sue