Well the past 6 weeks have been pretty crazy with only 1 week spent at home, and what a wonderful week that was. The girls loved it, playing together and Alyssa looking the best that we have seen her since diagnosis.

Here is a summary of some of the more eventful things thrown at us in the last 6 weeks:

March 9th: Admitted to hospital for the last round of chemo (the nurses call it FLAG and it’s the worst type) Alyssa copes well.

March 15th: Blood transfusion

March 16th: Chest X ray

March 20th: Central line split requiring an emergency repair.

March 21st: Blood transfusion

March 26th: Blood transfusion

March 29th was the week of pre-transplant testing, during this week Alyssa had the following tests, dental, kidney, echocardiagram, CT Scan under a general, Audiology and opthomology tests.

On 30th March we had our meeting with our oncologist who advised us we would be going into isolation for transplant on 11th April,

Finally on Thursday the 31st we were discharged for our home time.

April 5th: Bone Marrow aspiration & Lumbar Puncture

Disaster:The sunday before transplant we had arranged for family to come around for a BBQ to see Alyssa before she goes in for transplant. Just before lunch while playing in the yard, Alyssa got her central line caught in the decking and snapped it clean off (the absolute worst thing that could of happened 2 days out from transplant) So off to the hospital we went with Alyssa‘s line which travels directly to her heart exposed and open to the risk of infection for about 2 hours (we must have done a good job at keeping it sterile because no infection came), they did a repair job on it Sunday night but then the doctors decided it would be better to have the whole line replaced before the transplant to avoid any complications, so on the Tuesday Alyssa went into surgery to have it replaced.

Now we are in the transplant isolation room getting the preventative antibiotics and lethal doses of chemo to kill off her own bone marrow before the Transplant on April 21.

As of today its day minus 5 and Alyssa is showing us how tough she is, no infections, no vomiting, lots of energy & better still she is still eating with her staple being dry rice bubbles, cornflakes & easter eggs.