Peter’s Hospital Diary

And another year goes by! First a quick word of explanation about Christmas cards. We decided this year to donate what we normally spend on cards to the charity where we normally buy them, so they get more money! However we do want to keep in touch, hence this news letter.

You may remember that last year Peter had just suffered another relapse with the lymphoma, and this time last year had just undergone a course of radiotherapy, followed by yet more chemotherapy. Having struggled through Christmas, things came to a head in January (after the second round of treatment) when he collapsed at home and was taken as an emergency admission to Southampton General, where he spent a week in a side ward (his immune system was in pretty poor shape) on antibiotics and fluids and blood. transfusions. On his release, he went up to Guy’s to be told that it was felt that there was no further treatment available, other than palliative, and that he had between 3 and 6 months to live. Not a good start to the year. However, it was agreed that a PET scan would be useful to see exactly what was happening. The PET scan (to everyone’s surprise) showed that the chemotherapy had actually pushed things back into remission (and was better than the state for the transplant 12 months earlier) so the plans were revised and he had another dose of stored lymphocytes from the donor to trigger the immunological response. Suffice it to say that Peter is still alive and kicking. He went back to work in May, and the most recent PET scan in October showed that things are still OK. It is still early days, and we have been here before, but fingers crossed!

Felicity’s fledgling event management venture got off to a good start with a Wedding Fair held at our local church. However the hoped for follow up business didn’t materialise, so she has been doing some contract event management for Sodhexo, running catering facilities at the Chelsea Flower Show, Henley Regatta and Royal Ascot. She has also been working at the Christmas Party events that Sodhexo hold. She has also continued with her work as a magistrate.

The really big news of our year came in January – as Peter was lying in Southampton Hospital, Vicki gave birth to a baby girl, Olivia Ellen, on January 15th. Readers of the blog at www.boraston.net/blog will have seen the many photographs following her first year. She really is a lovely, happy baby and is a frequent visitor with Vicki – who also passed her driving test this year.

Katie settled in at Bournemouth University, and although she found the first year quite hard living with people she hadn’t met before, she passed her first year with a 2:1. However she made some good friends, and is now sharing a very nice privately rented house with two other girls. She has just returned from France with the University ski club, learning to snowboard.

Rachael achieved excellent GCSE results (including 2 AS levels – one being a grade A in English AS) and left Kings School to go to Peter Symonds sixth form college. She also found the transition difficult, but has now settled in, and is studying English, Psychology, Philosophy and Photography as her fun subject. She is also earning to drive and we hope she will pass her test soon.

Peter and Felicity took their first holiday for a couple of years – going to stay with friends (Sue and Mark) in their house in the Dordogne. In fact they had such a good time that they went again in October – initially on their own, until Sue and mark came out at the end of the week. Again photos are on the blog.

So it was a bit of a roller coaster year, but we end 2007 on a rather higher note than we ended 2006! We hope that you had a successful year, and we wish you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.