Back to school - Not!

Thursday was the first day back to school after the Easter holidays. Having discussed things with Rhys' school the day before we were all ready to send him off to school.

7am Thursday morning and it was time to get him out of bed. Light on, pull the covers from over his head and then start to wonder why there was blood on his pillow.  No obvious sign of blood but then we found traces in one of his nostrils. Still the nosebleed had stopped of its own accord so it was get ready for school.

Up, washed and dressed, time for breakfast. Now things start to change. A pain in the side, aching legs. OK, paracetamol can deal with that. Two 6ml syringes of liquid paracetamol to dull the pain but now there's a feeling of wanting to be sick. Looking washed out. No school for you young man. A day of rest and being watched to make sure your OK is called for. A day of rest? Ha!

Its been over a week since the biopsy and after being told that Rhys needed tests it was time to ring Bristol and find out what was happening. After ringing the Switchboard and getting through to Ward 34, where he was last week, then ringing Oncology Daybeds with no response we were eventually rung by the hospital themselves because they'd been asked to arrange a CT scan for Rhys. As we'd been told that they wanted to do a number of tests it was time to speak to the consultant himself so that we weren't making multiple trips to Bristol.

With Rhys being unwell we'd let Yeovil hospital know about the nosebleed and the pains. While talking to the oncology secretary in Bristol we received a call from Yeovil asking us to bring Rhys in to be checked out.

Still unsure about what was happening with regards to Bristol we turned up at Ward 10 for him to be examined and were pointed in the direction of the Rainbow room, somewhere that Rhys is very familiar with.. Shortly after arriving though Chris, his consultant, came into the room and told us that Bristol had rung him and asked that he sort out some scans.

First up was a bone density scan to check the state of his bones. With that out of the way in the morning, the afternoon was a CT scan. As usual Rhys took all of these in his stride.

With the scans out of the way the doctors confirmed that Rhys would be staying in hospital overnight.

Sausage and chips for dinner and a promise of a trip to McDonalds or Burger King when he is fit and well again and eventually it was time to leave him in the care of the nurses and make our way home.

Of course with use out of the way it was time to take advantage of a room with a large screen TV and a choice of DVDs and a Harry Potter film rounded off his day. Well I'll say day as from the texts we received it was 11pm before he switched off his phone and hopefully got some sleep.

Friday was a much simpler day with his consultant telling us the results of his tests.

The CT scan was OK, the bone density scan has been a bit more tricky as the hospital aren't able to produce a report for it because they tend to deal with older people, as a result they are able to produce reports for them but don't have the ability to do the same for younger people. Bristol, however, do have that ability so the results will be looked at by Bristol and they will produce a report.

His blood tests were all OK, the one exception (which isn't a huge problem at the moment) was his neutrophil count which was a bit on the low side. Its still nothing to really worry about.

By lunchtime Rhys had been discharged and was able to return home. Its only a temporary release from hospital however, as on Monday he goes into the Children's hospital in Bristol for surgery to remove the tumour. We've been told that the operation will take about 4 hours. The surgeon's list for the afternoon has been cleared so by the end of Monday Rhys will be free from the tumour and will have started recovering so that he can return home to Yeovil as soon as he's fit and well.