This day, the 20th of June 2011, was the day my beautiful niece Ava was booked in for her 15th and final surgery after 2yrs of Leukaemia treatment. It was a day we were both looking forward to & dreading. Looking forward to it because we knew that potentially we would find out that 2yrs of chemotherapy had killed this disease and that she was cancer-free. Dreading it because there was always a chance that the news wouldn’t be good.
My sister picked me up at 7.30am and we headed out to Westmead Children’s… a place we are all too familiar with. Ava was starving having been nil-by-mouth since the night before so it was all about distraction for the next couple of hours. And of course Ava chose to make herself different meals with the plastic food in the playroom.
Not long after we arrived it was time for bloods to check her platelets & white cell count. Then around 10am it was time to go in. She went to sleep with no tears. She’s so brave. The surgery involved a bone marrow biopsy, taken from her hip. And a lumbar puncture, removing cerebral fluid from the spine to check for cancer cells in the brain.
Ava took a long time to wake up but she woke up calmly and immediately wanted the caramel milkshake that Kel had promised her! The doctors said it all went well so it was then a matter of waiting.
I’m SO happy to say that the next morning Kel received a phone call from the hospital to say that the preliminary results were good!! No cancer cells could be seen in either her bone marrow or her spinal fluid. Now we wait for a month to get the ‘final final’ results. But all indications are good. Chemo has finished and from here on life should start to get easier.
The journey is by no means over… but the results we got this week are the best we could have hoped for.
Kel, I want to take this opportunity to tell you that I think you’re amazing. And Ava, I love you more than words and I know you’re going to be ok.
x
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