The Pink or the White?

Friday, 18 June

Yesterday Lucy collected a few beanies. Apparently there is a lovely lady somewhere who spends lots of time knitting beanies and sends them in to the Children's Hospital,

with a special basket for the oncology ward. I went for a shower on Thursday morning and when I returned she was sporting the pink beanie. I popped out for a quick lunch with the lovely Jane and Joel and came back to her decked out in the white one, playing the bells with the music therapist! So thank you, lovely lady, wherever you are. They're also available to purchase in the Volunteers Shop for the bargain price of $1, so maybe stop and grab one if you come to visit!

Things are still going well with Lucy - she's pretty happy and at present fast asleep after entertaining this mornings visitors Tara, Kirsty and Uncle Dave. Thanks for coming everyone! It certainly makes the days pass more quickly.

Lucy's blood levels are dropping very low as a result of the chemo, which is totally normal and to be expected. She had a platelet transfusion this morning to help her along in that department. The main issue with dropping blood levels is the risk of infection. I think the normal level of things called neutrofils (not sure if that's how you spell it!) in your blood is between 4 and 8, and Lucy's are now down to 0.8. They should be down around 0 over the next day or so. Neutrofils are one of the things that particularly give immunity, so having no defence left puts her at high risk of infection, the first sign of which is a temperature. So far no sign of any temperature which is great.

I spent last night at home with the girls which was good, and this morning we continued our new ritual of reading lots of books tucked up together in our big bed. Often the evenings aren't leaving too much time for reading, so it is fun to do a bit more in the morning, although the rush to get ready after that isn't so fun. This morning's favourite (as far as I'm concerned) was Wilfred Gordon MacDonald Partridge. Gorgeous!

Last night I also managed to blow a fuse or something as all the power points in the kitchen and bedroom stopped working. Fabulous. Just what we need. Hopefully Adam will fix it tonight..... Luckily I had brain enough to find an extension cord and plug the fridge into a powerpoint in the dining room that was working. So if you happen to pop into our house and see the fridge plugged in like that, please don't turn it off!

I had a bit of a look at Adam's super spreadsheet last night, and was just a bit overwhelmed by the number of people who are helping us out. It is very humbing to ask for and accept help, and we are deeply deeply grateful to you all for any and every act of kindness and all your prayers. So thank you. Hopefully one day we will be in a position to help some of you out, but for now I am learning to humbly and gratefully accept your wonderful help. We are so thankful for you - our families, our friends, our church family at Naremburn Anglican Church and Adam's employers and colleagues. Much love to you all, from all of us Burkes.