The results are in!

Missing nearly all of Year 11 is not exactly ideal preparation for your GCSEs so it would have been reasonable to expect a meagre return from the 2010 exam season. Far from it, Vicki passed everyone! Well done, I am so, so proud of you. Needing 4 GCSE's E grades to get onto the catering course that Vicki had picked was the target. I am thrilled to tell you that she far exceeded that. With a B in Maths, and a C in General Studies among the highlights, Vicki got double the 112 points needed to gain a place at College.

This is a major milestone, not least because it means she won't have to redo Year 11, and also because it means that she won't have to compromise and do a 'lesser' course. Given the last 12 months, this is a major achievement, and heralds the dawn of a new era for my little princess who will be starting college in just over a weeks time. Yet another event that I thought I may never see. What a summer, who cares about the weather!

I never thought this day would come

I haven't posted for a while, largely because life has been trotting along as normal, well as normal as it will ever be now. Vicki continues her monthly appointments and all is progressing nicely.

Today is Vicki's 16th birthday. There were some dark times over the last year when I didn't think that she would make it. But make it she has, and fingers crossed the future has many good things contained within it. Next week see the GCSE results published, and this will determine her path at college in September. Having missed almost the whole of Year 11, any results next week will be a great personal achievement. This should start a whole chain of events that will take her on some exciting adventures.

Today will be savoured; 16 is a special birthday, but for us, its so much more than that.

Happy birthday Vicki, I hope you have many, many more ahead of you.

They made us wait but finally it's happened!

Despite the fact that Vicki's treatment finished in February, it has taken until last Friday for Vicki's Hickman line to be removed. I cannot stress how big a deal this is; it's a significant milestone in her recovery and will now allow her to have a near normal life again.

Vicki continues to progress well, and is gaining in strength all the time. She still needs regular venesections to reduce the iron levels in her blood, but the levels are coming down well. Her immune system is gaining in strength too, and whilst we're some way off normal levels, the improvement is significant.

Vicki's in the middle of her GCSEs at the moment, a stage in her life I thought we might not reach 8 months ago. I can't get my head round the turn around in her life sometimes. It's quite miraculous that she's able to aim for 7 GCSEs at all, so well done her for not letting her education slip too much.

One milestone reached, another looms large on the horizon

Vicki had an appointment with the Genetics Nurse yesterday to discuss the implications of the Robertsonian Balanced Translocation that she carries. As my own research had already concluded, there are no implication for Vicki's own health, but for any children that she may have later. As with any other 15 year old, this isn't something that she's overly concerned with now, so we'll revisit this when the time come.

Far more pressing and immediate now is Vicki's GCSE exams which start on Monday. Over the next 5 weeks her short term educational future will lie in her own hands. The target is simply 4 GCSEs to get to college, and as she's taking 7 the percentages are looking good. To think that she's able to achieve any GCSEs is pretty amazing considering that she's spend about 2.5 weeks at school this year. So I take my hat off to her determination and resolve. I know she'll do well, I can feel it in my bones, and from I know of her, whatever the outcome, she'll succeed at whatever she chooses to put her mind to.

Good luck Vicki, I'm sure you will get all 7.

Slow but sure

Vicki continues to feel quite well in herself. The real picture however, it told by the blood counts which are still low, but are steady. It was a close call this morning, but after some 'umm-ing' and 'ahh-ing' the doctors decided to give Vicki some platelets today, and to review her antibiotics tomorrow. As I said in earlier posts, I would expect it to be another week before the counts return to levels that will allow her to come home.

Vicki's managing to do some school work and is actually benefiting from the one-to-one tuition that she gets from the educational outreach services that visits daily. It is well documented that she is no fan of English, but since she's been in hospital she's being studying Macbeth and Frankenstein with a renewed understanding thanks to the attention that she receives. A big thank you to the School at the Royal Infirmary for this.

It never rains but it pours

Never has such an everyday expression been so true. When I arrived home on Saturday in the torrential rain that lashed the country, I discovered the rain coming into my utility room. The lead flashing between the house and the utility room has finally given way. This will clearly be another job to add to the long list of things that will be attended to later when Vicki is better. [sighs]. Oh well, after the car, and now the house, what next I wonder?

The most interesting development with Vicki is the news that she now has a boyfriend. You would've thought perhaps that love would be the last thing on her mind, but apparently not. The object of her affections has long been known to me as "John". Those that know me will know that when saying "John", it would be complete with quotation mark finger gesture, and a certain tone of voice that also inferred the quotation marks. "John" started out because naturally Vicki didn't want to tell me the real name of the young man in question, but then developed into a life of it's own, with Vicki using the moniker to talk to her friends about him in front of me. Now, I know his real name, it's Andrew. It will however take some time for me to migrate to his proper form of address, so Andrew please forgive me if I call you "John", it's all I've known you as for the last 3 months or so. It will pass. Might I suggest you wear a badge with you name or, or perhaps get it tattooed on your forehead as an aide memoir for me? That'd be much appreciated.

Vicki needed some more blood products on Saturday, but this time only platelets, no blood transfusion this time. Saturday evening "John", sorry Andrew came to visit, and the positive impact this had on Vicki cannot be understated. Her face glowed, and the smile she wore stretched from ear to ear. The effect lasted all night, as she spent the night in teenage-texting mode. The old Vicki was back.

The power of the mind in medicine cannot be underestimated as the following day no blood products were needed at all. Co-incidence? Maybe, but without doubt the immune system and emotional parts of the brain are interlinked. Later on Sunday Vicki had a slightly raised temperature and the medical team administered some antibiotics as a precautionary measure.

There's still no definite news on when she can come home, but hopefully this will be soon. The wait for news on this begins to weigh quite heavily on me, I often feel quite unsupported in this alien environment. People are quite good at offering kind words, but what's really needed is the practical things, like money and domestic chores, which just don't go away. No amount of kind words (welcome though they are) are going to mow the lawn, clear up the leaves, fix the car, do the ironing, take Samuel to school and back, put diesel in the car, pay for the car park, sort work out and so on.

I popped into work today, and it made me realise that I'm missing so much social contact. It made me feel so alone. I realise that my life has just become endless journey's to and from the hospital, endless waiting for things to happen, endless household chores when I'm home. With little distraction to break the monotony. I know things will improve, but after seven weeks of this, the cracks are starting to show.

Education, education, education

When Mr Blair made this his statement of intent back in 1997, he made it a personal priority for his government of the day to invest heavily in schools. Pity the money didn't get spent on communication, communication, communication as I guess he didn't reckon on how hard it would be for a young girl in her GCSE year at school to continue her education.

Vicki has been ill for 6 weeks, and after her health, my next concern is for her education. She is a Year 11 GCSE student, so this is a pretty key year. The hospital of course recognise the importance of this and have their own school within the premises. Vicki's ward has its own classroom, as the children's treatment can often leave them confined to the ward. The school hospital has been very good in providing what classes in can, when Vicki is well enough, but need guidance from her main school to indicate where she is with her studies, and where the priorities are for the coming months.

So far so good? Now here's the thing. The hospital's school have been trying to get this steer from the main school but have hit brick walls. Phone calls, e-mails and faxes have not been responded too. One of the hospital teachers took me aside to explain the difficulty.

Obviously I was keen to intervene, so called the school immediately. Several conversations took place and it would seem that there was some sort of communication break-down at the school and her form teacher was unaware of the hospital's request for assistance. My heart sank. This was very frustrating. Some 24 hours later we are some way to getting coursework sorted, and also there is the matter of a mathematics exam next Friday (Friday the 13th ominously!). Then I discovered there were 2 Biology exams the following week! (Sighs)

I had to ask what dispensations were available to Vicki as she may not be able to take these exams. The school assured me they would look into it. Oh come on guys, protocols must exist for this already? This is only the most important year of her education, so no rush!

Anyway, whilst I am happy that things are now moving, I'm not happy that I've had to spend so much of my time (which is very short in supply) chasing something that I felt should have been automatically sorted. Obviously I had higher expectation of education, education, education that Mr Blair did!