My Church Magazine Article!

I was asked to write a little something for the Church Magazine about Alice and what has happened over the last few months. As I put time and effort into writing it I thought I'd post it here too!

 

We had initially thought Alice was coming down with a nasty virus in late November 2012. But as
she got progressively worse we took her to hospital. Thank God the Doctors took me seriously when I told them I felt there was something very wrong.   She was admitted and given a drip with fluids and the Doctors took blood tests. Alice was very anaemic and needed a blood transfusion immediately. It was very frightening to see her so ill and to realise that she very nearly didn’t make it to her 3^rd Birthday. 

Blood tests showed a virus called the parvovirus , which can cause anaemia. But Alice just couldn’t clear it. So in January a decision was made and we were sent to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London where Alice had a bone marrow aspiration which would finally confirm what was causing the problems with her blood.

When we were given the diagnosis of ALL - Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia on 16^th January 2013,  we went into over drive trying to process all the information given by the doctors as well as trying to work out the best for us as a family on a practical level.

Having discussed as much as we could with Doctors we requested Alice be moved to Leeds so that I could move in with my parents (rather than a rented room in London) and concentrate on getting Alice better. All went smoothly with the transfer to Leeds; Gibraltar had no objections.

Treatment started within Hours of being given her diagnosis and her first chemotherapy was given the same day.  We started to loose ‘our little Alice’ as the steroids took over and it felt as if we had been robbed of both her health and her personality.

Throughout Alice was still fighting the Parvovirus which mimics leukaemia and the doctors were left scratching their head often over her blood counts and how poorly she still was. We asked for more concentrated prayer at this point to clear her of the parvovirus.

Once off the large doses of steroids Alice started to return to us and after a week in hospital (first of many) on IV Antibiotics she bounced back to her normal smiling self. At this time we also saw an improvement in her blood counts and eventually she tested clear of the parvovirus, Thank the Lord!

Physically Alice has taken all changes in her stride, loosing hair, growing hair and loosing it completely, gaining weight and loosing weight, having problems with walking, loosing the ability to run and jump, smiling through the pain, discomfort and fatigue.

We took any opportunity to get home to Gibraltar and have managed 2 visits. On our second trip we spent a week in hospital once again on IV Antibiotics.

Fresh from our stay in hospital in Gibraltar we started the most difficult phase of treatment. Alice was on lots of high dose chemotherapy for around 6 weeks.  During this time we had another 11 days in hospital due to a flu virus and a reaction to one of her drugs which caused her heart rate to slow.

We are now in the final and longest phase of treatment. Gibraltar and Leeds hospitals have worked together so that we can go home and have our monthly chemotherapy in Gibraltar, our daily dose at bed time will continue at home and 12 weekly visits to the Leeds will be needed for chemotherapy injections into Alice’s spine.

We have so much to thank God for: The number of people praying and showing such concern for Alice has been overwhelming:  The love and support from family and friends helping us to stay positive (mostly) about Alice’s treatment.

There have been times which were very challenging and Alice hasn’t always been a model child but we have always found the strength to continue and on occasions we have actually enjoyed our time here in the UK!

We continue to ask for your prayers and support for the next challenges we face, sending Toni off to University in September, Alice Staring at the School Nursery, and for all of us adapting to living with leukaemia together again as a family.