22 February 2015

After 2 weeks on the cancer drug, I am happy to report that I am still not experiencing side effects, and my blood tests this week showed everything to be normal too. My oncologist said he has 3 patients on this drug at the moment and none are experiencing side effects, and the drug is proving to be effective for the other two people (too early to tell for me). My only inconvenience is keeping on top of the pain in the left hip – which can vary a bit during the day or night.

It has on the whole been a quiet week but with a few special highlights to brighten up the day.

It was a great joy to have a dozen staff members from St John’s school pop around after school on Wednesday for a laugh and a chat - catching up on all the local ‘school goss’ in the process. Being unable to support the school in a hands-on way has been difficult for me, so I especially valued this visit.

Earlier in the week Brian headed over to Mt Gambier to pick up our new car, so we are now the proud owners of a silver Mitsubishi Outlander Aspire. It’s lovely and comfortable inside with more bells and whistles than we’ll ever learn to use (though Brian is working on that). But more importantly, I can get into it easier than our older Hyundai Terracan (which had raised suspension). So we’ve had a few drives around the area to test it out. 

Yesterday, just to get out of the house for a bit we went to the Portland botanical gardens and enjoyed meandering around the ancient trees and enjoying some of the roses and dahlias. A pleasant outing.

An unimpressive photo of our new car, looking out the lounge window.

An outing to the Portland Botanical Gardens

It's hard work pushing a chair around!