23rd September to 6th October
I have been feeling quite ill and have been in hospital for 7 days having IV antibiotics.
On Monday when the Dr came and listened to my chest he said he could hear a little rattle so I had to go for a chest x-ray.
The x-ray showed something not very good and the Doctors in Leeds want me treated for a type of pneumonia called PCP for short. I have to take antibiotics every Monday and Tuesday to try and stop me from getting it. It is caused by something everybody has in their bodies but when you have chemotherapy it makes it hard to fight and makes you sick.
I didn't have any oxygen but did get to stay in the room we call the goldfish bowl because the nurses can look in a big window and see me all the time!
I have been quite happy on Rainbow Ward and I have got out of bed and played everyday! I am having some pink horrible steroid and I think Mummy would rather that I didn't get grumpy then excited then hungry then grumpy quite so often but I can't help it.
I love all the nurses who look after me on Rainbow Ward and make my time so much fun! Everyone knows me and Mummy here and everyone wants to come and play in my room because it is the best place in the hospital to be!
My Nana comes to see me everyday so Mummy can go home or to the shops or what ever in the mornings and Daddy comes for lunch with Mummy and me and then he looks after me when he finishes work so that Mummy can go home and look after Joe and cook dinner for them.
I got to go home on Monday when I was well enough but couldn't go to school so Mummy and I made cakes and played and my cousins came to visit and play with me.
The good thing about being sick is that they didn't give me my monthly injection in my wigglies yet so I haven't been as tired as I normally am at the beginning of the month.
On Friday I was feeling much better and wanted to start going back to school but I had to go to the hospital instead to have blood taken from my wigglie and also from my hand because when they took blood on Sunday the people in the lab grew something and they think I might have an infection in my line.
I have to have IV antibiotics again but because I am so well the Dr lets me go home during the day and I have my medicines at night when I sleep at the hospital. We are waiting to see if anything grows in the blood they have taken.
Saturday night was also very exciting because Daddy had a sleepover at the hospital with me and Mummy went home instead.
Mum Says: It is very hard to be back in hospital again after such a decent stretch out in the real world. It reminds us all that Alice is still sick and not as well as we would like her to be.
Being in hospital in Gibraltar is a lot different than being in the UK. I get to go home everyday and spend some time with Joe and to do the washing and generally keep an eye on how the boys are coping at home. We see Gareth everyday before he goes to work, at lunch time and after work! Although Alice has been quite ill she has been happy and alert and playful. Which is a different experience from the last few months when she hasn't really been happy or playful at home.
The Nurses on Rainbow Ward make you feel like part of the family and keep Alice's spirits up. The little things count like putting a picture up with her name by the bed. It all adds to making the late night dash to the hospital a little less stressful.
Gareth and I tried to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary on the 3rd and it started well but I got a call from the hospital asking me to bring Alice in for blood tests as her blood culture taken on Sunday had grown a bacteria and they were concerned that her line might be infected. So Alice had to start on IV antibiotics and have new cultures taken from the line and from another vein. So the stress and waiting began again!
This time the Dr saw how well Alice is in herself and she is able to come home during the day, having most of the antibiotics at night when she is in the hospital advantage of being 10 minutes away, thank goodness Gibraltar is so small!
We are now starting to try and break Alice of the Mummy habit that she has developed over the last year Gareth stayed with her at the hospital and I got the bed to myself and an unbroken night of sleep!
