Welcome to Eliza's Blog

How your life can change in an instant. Mine did! How did I come to be here at The Childrens Hospital at Westmead?
It all started in mid October. I had been feeling tired, and I was having trouble finishing games of netball and touch footy. Even dancing seemed to make me tired. Sometimes I would get a bleeding nose, and it would take a long time to stop. Then I started to become anaemic (looking pale) and Dad and Mum took me to the doctor. He did some blood tests, and the results showed that I had low blood counts with lots of unusual looking blood cells. The Doctor made me an appointment to see the Haemotology Department at the Childrens Hospital at Westmead. My appointment was for 9.00am on 3rd November, 2008. Mum & Dad brought me down from Forbes the night before and we stayed at Murfs place at Blaxland in the Blue Mountains. Murf is a cool friend of Dad's who thinks every month is Movember because he has a moe.
Week 1
We arrived at the emergency department of the Childrens Hospital, at 8.30am on Monday 3rd November. Once we arrived the nurse took some details from Mum and they took me inside where they did another blood test. It wasn't supposed to hurt, because they put some anaesthic cream on the inside of my elbows so I wouldn't feel the needle. The only problem was, that when they went to do the blood test, they couldn't find a suitable vein where they had put the cream, and they had to insert the needle in my forearm. That hurt! Ouch!!! I was feeling pretty lousy, and when the blood test came back, the doctor, Geoffrey McCowage, and a nurse took Mum and Dad to a little room and told them that the blood tests confirmed I had leukemia, but that didn't know which type. They thought it might be ALL (Acute Lymphoid Leukemia) but they wouldn't know until they did a bone marrow biopsy. This they do under a general anaesthetic. They insert a fine needle into your hip bone from the back, and take out a small amount of the bone marrow. Then they test it to see what type of leukemia you have so they can administer the correct type of treatment. At the same time they did a lumbar puncture. This is where they insert a little needle to take a small amount of spinal fluid, to see if there are any leukemia cells in your spine. For me there were none, so that was my first good news for the week. Unfortunately though, they could not decide on the type of leukemia, as the pathologists had said they didn't have enough of my bone marrow to be able to come to a conclusion. They did say that their were signs of AML (Acute Myloid Leukemia). The treatment for leukemia is to have chemo therapy, and the best way to administer this is by a "Central Line". This is a tube inserted into a big vein in your neck that goes down inside nearly to your heart. From where it comes out of your neck, they take it along under your skin and bring it out on your chest so that it is out of the way and behind your clothes. It doesn't sound good, but it allows the nurses to take blood for testing, and to give the chemo therapy without sticking needles in you. They can even do all that while I'm asleep and not even wake me up.
Anyway, because they didn't have enough bone marrow to test properly, and they had to put in a central line, I had to go back into surgery again on the Wednesday, 5th November to have all that done. I didn't know what was happening because I was asleep, but I think it was a bit tough on Mum and Dad. The doctor said he would not have results until Friday afternoon.
On Friday afternoon, Dr Geoffrey McCowage told Mum and Dad I had AML, and that we would start Chemo Therapy immediately.
So, at 6.42 pm on Friday 7th November, I started the chemo therapy which will get rid of my leukemia and make me better again. Dad told me to think of it like a team. On my team is my family, my friends, the doctors, the nurses, the chemo therapy, the other drugs, and I'm the Captain. We're the goody's. On the other side is the leukemia. The baddy's. So, they kicked off, but we've got the ball. The game might go for six months or even more, but we'll win because we've got the best players!!!
The first chemo goes for ten days. One of the drugs is given everyday, morning and night, another one is given once on day one, three and five, and the other every second day. After those ten days, there are two weeks for the drugs to take full effect, then hopefully a week to feel better, before they start round two of chemo. All together, there are four rounds of chemo. Having chemo therapy make me feel really sick, so they give me medicine to stop me feeling sick. They pretty much give me medicine for everything. If you have a pain in the tummy, they can give you something. If you feel like spewing, they give you something. The worst thing for me was I got a really bad rash. A bit like the rash you get from rolling on the grass just after Dad mows the lawn. Later on in my blog, I'll try and tell you a bit more about the chemo. They have big names.