3 weeks clear......

Today we're going back to the hospital for Meg's first rouine blood test to keep an eye on her "status". The test they do is checking her Alpha Feta Protein level, which as I've said before, is the first sign of anything amiss if the level goes above 3. (when she was first diagnosed the AFP level was 17,000! That kind of puts it into perspective).She'll have this test every month and we have to wait for at least 5 days for the results.

At the moment Meg is doing fantastically well! She has oodles of energy and even when she's been out all day, mucking out stables, raking arenas, cleaning tack, rugging and feeding horses, and generally being very active, she STILL has energy enough left to annoy poor Ellie!! She's looking really well, has colour in her cheeks and her hair is starting to sprout along with eyelashes and eyebrows. She spent the first 6 days of the school holidays at the riding stables from 8am to 5pm and LOVED it! She then went to our lovely friends, Ross and Tanya's farm in Nannup with Ellie for a week. Acres and acres of beautiful landscape, fresh air, exercise and cows! She called us half way through her farm trip to say she was very homesick and wanted to come home, so Phil ended up going to collect her on the Friday. That was fine, and not totally unexpected; she's been with me constantly for the last 18 months and being away from us was bound to affect her feelings of security. I'm just happy that she had such a great holiday and was able to live her life instead of being holed up in hospital, as has been the case on most of her previous school holidays.

So, the upshot now is that Meg has been "clear" for 3 weeks. She still has a 50/50 chance of the cancer returning or staying in remission. She's relpased twice before; the first time after 9 weeks, and the second time after 8 weeks, so we're aiming for the 8 week mark to start with, and then the black cloud that follows us around may shrink a little...... Then we'll aim for 3 months, then four..... Meg's oncologist has made it very clear that she needs to stay clear for at least 12 months for her to have a chance. So THAT is what we're going to do...... We're not out of the woods yet, but we're going to do everything we can to get there. Please keep praying and sending positive, healing thoughts her way.......

Jane xxxxx