Marathon not a sprint...

Ellen has continued to have bad mucositis and is still being sick. She is being fed intravenously (as her gut isn't working) and she is on regular morphine to relieve pain. She has had a few brighter spells, however, and made it out of bed and into the playroom a couple of times. She even managed a brief trip outside on Thursday to see Daddy hit with a water-bomb! We can expect more of the same for the next few weeks.

This time last year Ellen was coming to the end of her neuroblastoma treatment and a number of people (including her Dad, two of her uncles, a second cousin and a number of other close friends of the family) were in final training for the London Marathon. As a group of 12, the "Running for Ellen" team raised a total of over £75,000 for Sparks to fund research into curing neuroblastoma. This year one of the team is doing it again! Please support David Johnson (DJ) in this great cause by clicking here.

Tough week

Ellen has had a tough week. The second round of chemo has caused her to have bad mucositis (inflammation and ulceration of the digestive tract). She is being sick, has constant diarrhea and requires morphine to manage the pain. She is unable to leave her bed and feels understandably miserable! The chemo has now finished but these symptoms are likely to continue for a while longer and we still have a wait of 4-5 weeks in hospital before her bone marrow starts to function again.

Round 2

Ellen has recovered from her first set of chemotherapy and came home on Monday for a well deserved week away from hospital. She has been on fine form and we received good news on Thursday that the initial chemo has worked and she is now in remission (ie no sign of leukaemia cells). Unfortunately, given the high risk of recurrence, she needs further intensive treatment which involves another round of chemo followed by a bone marrow transplant. We are heading back to hospital for round 2 of chemo tomorrow and, all being well, expect to be there for 5-6 weeks before Ellen is well enough to come home again.

Still waiting....

Ellen is doing OK. She had another infection towards the end of last week, but that has now settled with more IV antibiotics. We are still waiting for her blood counts to come up before they can assess how she has done. This will take another week or so.