What's Next?

Well, people keep remarking that kids bounce back quickly. Alex has bounced back. It's pretty much an under-statement but he has. Alex eats like a small red-headed horse. An incredibly hansom horse of good breeding.

The doctors warned us that it would take a while for Alex's immune system to fully recover. He has had a few colds but nothing really serious. It's tempting to ring the hospital with every small bruise or sniffle but when-ever we do they either fetch us in for a blood sample or re-assure us that it's just normal. Poor old Tom could have all the infections in the world and we just let him off school for a day but we are really still nervous about Alex.

Not that Alex cares. He is amazingly forward with drawing. 18 months old and he can just about colour-in a shape. He can recognise and say square, triangle, circle, star and spiral. Tom does not seem to care about drawing too much, he has different talents. I think Alex must have found a love for pens when they were the only thing he could really play with in intensive care.

The food supplements stopped at the very end of 2004. Now it's just check-ups every month until June-ish. Then blood tests every few months until the doctors say. So far the blood tests have all been normal but the last heart scan showed a problem with the size of a chamber in the heart. This may be nothing but they are going to double check since the treatment could have damaged Alex's heart. The doctors assure us it's fixable. They've done good so far so I personally am not too worried.

I secretly never thought I be glad to see Alex's hair grow back red but I am. He's now in danger of loosing the hair again because of people (especially me) rubbing it.

It does look like he has made it through what we can only hope to be the most difficult part of his life. Mind you he has not had kids of his own yet, that will probably be more stressful than cancer.