Doing OK

Ellen's Hickman Line went in fine. She has now had three days of chemotherapy and is doing OK. We now have a week more of daily chemotherapy. We will then continue to be in hospital for 4 - 6 weeks whilst we wait for the effects of the chemotherapy to wear off. At this point we will find out if the chemotherapy has worked and therefore what the next step will be.

Signing in

After a truly wonderful summer Ellen has sadly become unwell again. She has had several viral infections over the past eight weeks. We initially thought that these were straight forward winter bugs but it has now become clear that Ellen has developed Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. This is a rare complication of the bone marrow transplant she had 18 months ago. Today she is having another Hickman Line put in and will start a course of chemotherapy that we hope will clear the leukaemia cells. It is going to be yet another tough journey for Ellen as the doctors are not sure if the chemotherapy will work. We remain positive that Ellen's strength and tenacity will get her through this.

Signing out....

Ellen really enjoyed her first visit to the swimming pool. It is hard to believe that this time last year she was nearly half way through her bone marrow transplant and was to face over a month in isolation and a long hard battle with VOD. Heres to a summer of swimming, fun and the holiday club which starts in two weeks.

We are now hoping that Ellen's life will now be that of a regular three year old with no medical news to report and, as such, we feel it is time to sign off from regular blogging. Thank you to all those who have supported us over the past 18 months; there are far too many of you to mention everyone but without you we would never have made it this far....

It is OUT

Ellen's Hickman line is safely out. She is so pleased and can now enjoy the delights of the recent heat wave without the fear of it coming out and bleeding or it becoming infected. We plan to take her swimming on Thursday. This will be the first time she has been for 18 months and as she used to love it so much will be a very special moment!

Good times

We had a fantastic holiday in Dorset. Ellen has been in the paddling pool, almost swimming in the sea and visited lots of fun places. It is truly wonderful to see her enjoying life so much. We are hoping that her Hickman line can come out soon as it is quite challenging preventing such an active little girl from either pulling it out or covering it in mud/dirty water as she chases the cat around or plays with other children. We see the Consultant on Tuesday so we await the result of the discussion....

London Marathon Video

Below is a link to the Sparks London Marathon video. We are featured from 7 ish minutes on...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRPYfKRYMhY&feature=youtu.be&a

Life on the outside

We are slowly starting to adapt to life in the 'outside world'. Ellen is doing well. She is eating like we have never seen before and has put on over half a kilo in weight. With more time away from hospital Ellen is gaining confidence and has been enjoying playing with other children; something that she has been denied due to her immune status. This is all helped by the fact that her energy levels are noticeably better. We had hoped that Ellen's Hickman line would be removed last week but as a few of her blood results are yet to return to normal from all the medicines she has had this wont be possible for a good few weeks. We are off on a well earned two week holiday to Dorset next week and cannot wait!!