Hi all, just a quick note to say that we are home at last, escaped at 1.30 so home just after 3.30, not too bad.

All went really really well on this round, no problems, no sickness, Brad slept through most of the 3 days, probably the best way to deal with it.

Thankyou Shelly and family for the DVD, a nice surprise. Brad and Rich enjoyed watching that.

Provisional date for surgery has been set for the 26th March, all this depends on MRI scan to be done on the 15th February which will determine the type of surgery. Surgery will take place and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, under a Mr Timothy Briggs who has done the surgery on other kids with Ewings that we have spoken to at UCLH, he comes highly recommended.

Our best wishes go out to Simon, hope that things improve for you, so sorry that you're having such a rough time. Keep your chin up, perhaps the reduction in your dose will help a little with the problems your having. All our love Brad and gang.XXXXXX

Bye for now

Hey Handsome!!
Brad and Dad
I was warned not to post this one - but heh, perhaps someone else has cheese straws lurking in their cupboard and would like to look as silly as these two!!!!

Hi all, Brad's ok, spending some time with his mates and relaxing a little.

Our Macmillan Nurse, Gini has been today and Brad's blood has come back with all levels ok to proceed to cycle 4, so we are back at UCLH on Thursday morning.

Will update when we get home again.

Hello, the Stem Cell Harvest went well, he was hooked up and running by 10o'c, the harvest didn't take as long as we were expecting and we were all done by around 1o'c. Brad also had an extra bag of platelets as his HB was still a little low...........then the fun started, trying to get home when the whole of the train system decided to shut down, couldn't get into Kings X to get train home, couldn't get onto District Line to get back to Nan Pen's, Rich couldn't get a train straight away back to Kent.......what a bloody mess.

Eventually we all got where we wanted to be, hopefully now that Brad has had some blood and platelets he'll be feeling a lot lot better and we'll have him home for a week almost. Bit of normal time at home, and with a bit of luck get him out of the house with his friends.

We are back again at UCH for round 4 on Thursday morning.
Bye for now
Mum

Hello, we escaped this evening from Hinch, Brad received 2 units of blood in all, and his blood counts have come up sufficiently for the Harvest to go ahead tomorrow. We'll be going back to UCLH early in the morning and hopefully they'll gather enough in one session and we'll be home again same day, if not they'll do another session on friday. Each session is around 5-6 hours, so lots of boring sitting around again.

Thanks very very much to those who were able to come up and see Brad while he was in Hinch, he was pleased to have some much needed company, and i'm really really grateful too, as he was beginning to get a little down and feeling quite low and frustrated, poor guy, really going through a rough patch at the moment!!!!!!

Thanks again
Post again when we get back from UCLH

Hi all, well he's done better than before, he stayed home for a week before being admitted back to hospital. At midnight last night his temperature reached 38 after hovering around the high 37's for a few hours, he was sick so we took him into Hinchingbrooke, they have put him on a ward and are giving him antibiotics etc as usual to treat what they think is a throat infection and a sore mouth again. They will probably hang onto him there until Thursday when hopefully we'll transfer him down to UCH for the stem cell harvest (depending on blood results).

I've had trouble logging on today, Brad's blog has gone over to the new version and i think it's made it difficult for some people to log on, keep trying though, i ended up using the old version to log on and it took me in that way - try it, it may work for you.

I'll keep you all posted if anything further happens, otherwise i'll post again after the harvesting.
Bye
Mikki XXXXX

Hi again, we are home, we managed to escape early today, left at just after 1o'c so that was a bit of a bonus, they doubled up on Brads Mesna hydration so that it went through in just 6 hrs instead of 12.

He has to have a higher dose of GCSF every day as I said before, and Full Blood Counts, etc done every other day until his Stem Cell Harvest on the 18th back at UCLH.

No sickness at all this time round, and Brad has basically slept through the whole 3 day process, sleeping through the day because of how tiring the chemo makes him, and sleeping through the chemo right through the night, then says he's tired and sleeps all the way home too, if he's not careful he'll turn into a Sloth and moss will slowly grow on his body through lack of movement!!!

Hopefully, we can try and keep him out of hospital inbetween and do some normal things once he feels up to it.

Bye
Mum

Hi everyone, Mum here, all has gone well with the 3rd round so far, no problems, MRI scan was ok, should know the outcome in the next couple of weeks, also had normal xray films taken of his leg and chest and they were all fine.

Thanks Shelly for Brads little pressie that arrived today, i'll say no more or it won't be any fun!!!

Simon has also arrived back on T12 for his 2nd round of chemo, having spent time over xmas and new year like Brad, in hospital, with the very same problems that Brad has been experiencing, his tumour has also dramatically reduced in size, this stuff certainly 'does what it says on the tin' as the saying goes.

This time around they have reduced the dose of one of the most potent of his four drugs by 20% to try and reduce the time that he spends neutropenic, and will be increasing his GCSF injections ready for Stem Cell Harvesting which will take place in a fortnight back at UCLH.

Hopefully he'll spend a little more time at home this cycle and maybe even get out a bit for a bit of time with his mates.

We'll post again when we get home, which will hopefully be late on Sunday evening.

Bye for now
Mum

Hi all, we are all packed and ready to roll for round 3. Brad's had a good couple of days at home, spent some time with his friends and been out to the cinema.

Tomorrow lunchtime, before Brads chemo which is due to start in the evening, the team at UCH will be doing an MRI scan to check the progress of the shrinking tumour, it'll be great to know what it's been doing and what the outlook is for the next 3 months.

We are hoping that the dose that Bradley gets on his chemo drugs will be slightly lighter this time around so that he is not ill again so badly when his blood counts go down, i know that they were thinking about it but we'll see.

Hopefully i'll be able to access the comp again from the hospital to update blog, but if not, someone will i'm sure.

Bye for now, early night for us, leaving early again in the morning.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mum here, Hello everyone, and a very happy 2007 to you all.

You'll be pleased to know that we did spring Brad from Prison Addenbrookes on Sunday morning and made our way to Nan Pen's for a lovely New Years Dinner and drinks.

We've arrived back home today, to get all the washing done and repack everything in time to go back to UCH in the early hours of Thursday morning to start all over again !!!!

Thanks to everyone for the posts over the past week, and your praying that our Brad would be better and well enough to come home for a few days.

Message to Uncle Bri in Canada, Magners is an Irish Cider that we can get over here, it's very popular lately, especially throughout the summer, it's nice served long over ice, Brad loves it and they are also the main sponsors of his favorite rugby team the Wasps, (strange coincidence i feel!!)

Bye for now.