Everything counts

Now Vicki's 3rd chemotherapy is behind us she has all the joy of the side effects kicking in. From a medical point of view this means her blood counts lowering to levels that are dangerous were she in the outside world. Of course they are still dangerous inside the ward, its just that she's in a place that is equipped to deal with all the risks. She's already had 3 units of blood tranfused, and in addition yesterday she received some platelets.

She's quite well in herself but is still shattered from her eye drops. She's nearly done with them, and hooray for that. The ward is full to bursting today, and there is an awful lot of noise going on beyond the confines of the cubicle door. Not exactly what you'd call restful conditions.

Against this backdrop Christmas seems such an irrelevance. Nothing more than a hedonistic consumptive binge. But the reality is that it is nothing more than a date on a calender. It's not even the anniversary of Jesus's birth as any theological historian worth their weight will tell you. Many of the traditions that we all take for granted are relatively modern in origin. Trees, cards, presents, Santa, turkey and the like to name but a few.

When the lights went out last night neither of us were tired, so we discussed some interesting topics. For a 15 year old girl she has a sharp wit and a wry observation of the world. We talked about religion, politics, the environment and education. Not only could I not have imagined this conversation taking place 6 months ago, the maturity of her thinking had me grinning in appreciation of her ideas. As an envirommentalist I was pleased to hear her talking about wind farms, recycling and deforrestation. As a father I was so proud to hear her talking about things that I've been banging on about for years!

She's quite a girl my daughter, but then I knew that already!