Força Aurelia

 We are about to start the last chemo block of August and we can hopefully take Aurelia back to Girona on Saturday. She will have two weeks “off” (with a few dr appts) and then begin the next phase.  Our next phase will be 11 days at home in Girona and then 4 days as an inpatient at the hospital in Barcelona. This phase will continue until mid-November (11 days off/4 on) and our plan is to take turns with the hospital stays. One of us will go spend the days/nights in the hospital with Aurelia and the other will stay home in Girona with Eston.  The phase that begins in mid-November will require Aurelia to be in Barcelona, so we are figuring that out with Eston and school and such. We want his life to remain as normal as possible in Girona as we navigate through this process. Aurelia is doing well. She still has yet to experience most side effects, though her hair is now nearly gone. I bought her a few head scarves and hats and wigs to figure out what she prefers. She still...

Aurelia continues to handle the chemotherapy and other treatments to the best of her ability. Four days a week we are at the hospital and her treatment takes about an hour or so. We spend another 1.5 hours with the physio and also have visits with the oncologist. All of her numbers continue to improve and we feel incredibly grateful. Her hair has been intact thus far but we have noticed a change in the last day. She is definitely starting to lose her hair now and we’ve had a long chat with her about it. The hospital psychiatrist suggests not making any huge changes until she is ready so we will just put her hair in a ponytail and hope for the best. 🙂 Aurelia has not felt many side effects other than a little nausea here and there. Of course, with Covid we can’t take her out and about due to the high risk of infection. We have not seen anyone or done anything but Eston starts school next month so hopefully her immune system can handle it. We have focused on nutrition a great deal to ke...

 Not much to report, which I suppose is a good thing. Aurelia is at the rental house in Barcelona with us and she goes to the hospital daily for her chemotherapy and physio therapy. The new chemotherapy has given her a few stomachaches, but that’s about it. She feels good and has a lot of energy until dinner time. After dinner she is ready to sleep! If things keep going well we will be allowed to return to Girona for September and October. During this block Aurelia will have 11 days at home in Girona and then 4 days of inpatient chemotherapy at the hospital in Barcelona. In November we will have to return to live in Barcelona and we hope to come back to the house we are currently renting as it is 5 minutes from the hospital. One of us will drive Eston to school in Girona. It’s not ideal, but it’s only for a few weeks and we decided as a family to stay together. When Aurelia is home she does all of her normal activities- ping pong with Eston, arts and crafts, cooking and baking with...

 It’s been a busy week! On Monday afternoon we left the hospital after 34 days of being inpatient! Yay! We also moved from a city apartment to a house closer to hospital so everyone is enjoying having some space and not being right in the city, which is clogged with tourists in August as all of Europe takes a holiday. Aurelia had her bone marrow sample yesterday and we are thrilled that there was no evidence of disease. This result was expected based on her blood work, but it’s great to have the confirmation.  This great news does not change the course of treatment. Most kids with ALL are cancer free after 30 days and the next 1.5 years will be spent keeping the cancer from returning. Today we are back at the hospital to begin the next round of treatment, but we are outpatient now so we don’t have to spend the night.  Eston and Aurelia were finally reunited on Monday. Due to covid and oncology restrictions she could not have visitors at the hospital, so it was super emoti...

 Not much new to report as the hospital days are pretty standard. Aurelia continues to be feeling strong most days and is looking forward to moving to outpatient in a week or so (if everything goes well). She is handling the chemotherapy really well and we all feel a definite sense of positive light. A lot of friends have asked about fund raising and such and thankfully here in Europe we have socialized medicine so there isn’t a need to raise money to pay hospital costs. However, if you feel inclined we welcome you to donate to a leukemia or cancer charity to help those families in need. Our dear friends in Australia are raising money in Aurelia’s honor for an amazing charity so I wanted to share it here: https://fundraise.campquality.org.au/fundraisers/ForcaAurelia?fbclid=IwAR0vf7KE-dWBQTR_osz6yQszVXx_9JctifVObO8OBXEw2F8MwLm_OhsfPPA The steroids she is on cause weight gain and inflammation, so she is not thrilled with those changes but she won’t be on that medication for long and ...

I arrived at the hospital a few hours ago (aurelia is having her snack and watching master chef) and we have great news from the oncology team. When Aurelia was first diagnosed her sample cells were 92% cancer and now that number is 1%. There is a long road of treatment ahead (approximately two years), but these numbers give everyone a huge boost and so much hope. Aurelia is not the least bit surprised as “she knew she was killing the cancer.” So there you have it. Aurelia is working really hard with the physio to start walking again. She does several sessions a day and we are trying to get her inflamed nerves back to where they need to be so she can start walking. Now that her blood is healing itself, we hope her bones and nerves will follow. A few people have asked me about sending cards or postcards. Aurelia loves getting postcards! The best place to send them is to Federal, our restaurant in Girona.  Aurelia Sutherland Federal Café Girona C/Forca, 9 Girona 17004 Spain 

 I met with the oncology team yesterday and the results from Aurelia’s day 15 tests are really encouraging—-her numbers  are moving in the right direction. This gives us so much hope and positivity.  The chemo in this current phase makes Aurelia really hungry, so we make sure she has smaller meals throughout the day. We have a small fridge in the room to store food and that’s helpful.  Weekends are a bit more calm since we don’t have so many visits from hospital staff. Aurelia did a seated yoga video and then shared her favorite meditation song with me. We played Monopoly and did a few art projects. She likes to listen to audio books while she does art.  Rory will be here in a couple hours to switch places with me. I usually walk back to the apartment as it’s only 4km through a nice neighborhood. Sleeping in the hospital is not optimal since the nurses come in every couple of hours to do vitals, etc.  Everyone keeps asking how we are and it is strange how q...