Blog silence

Sorry, folks. The blogging well is a bit dry at the moment here. I'm on a steep learning curve at work sorting out all the oldies going home from hospital, and I'm also busy revising bed mobility and hoist transfers for this round of teaching the first year students.

I have also been distracted by the discovery of a rather addictive game called Bejeweled. One of my patients at work (95 years old, with a stroke that has knocked off a reasonable amount of her language and cognition) used to play it in her pre-stroke days. When her daughter showed me the game on their laptop, I thought I should download it myself. To investigate its therapeutic potential, of course. Now I can't seem to stop playing it.... And when I tried to use it with her at work, I realised how much damage the stroke had done. Her processing speed was too slow for it to really be useful or even enjoyable for her anymore.

So now I am going to have to cure myself of this annoying addiction. Thank goodness the kids have the iPad at school during the day so I can get a few other things done....

What I'm listening to....

A bit of Kate Miller-Heidke. There's one song with the rather up-front title "I Like You Better When You're Not Around."

Her Dad taught me Maths 2 at high school. That's growing up in Brisbane for you. It's a small world.

Farewell Harvey

I've blogged about Harvey in here before, but I haven't updated how he's going for a while now. He was clear of cancer for a while, but then his tumour returned late last year and over the past few months, he was having pretty heavy duty chemotherapy treatment in an effort to get rid of it again.

Last night, he lost his fight for life after developing a chest infection. Just a common cold virus that probably wouldn't be a problem for you or me, or even for him if he was well. But with his immune system so compromised, he couldn't fight it off. He passed away early this morning.

Harvey is almost exactly the same age as Rosie (they were born a week apart). His older brother Oliver was born on the same day as Liam. I have never met his Mum Cassie in person, but we have been part of an online mother's group together for over eight years now. She is a strong and brave Mum who has blogged about Harvey's journey with cancer on a blog called Harvey the Cure-ageous Lion. She has updated her blog just a few hours ago to share what happened during Harvey's last hours.

Farewell, Harvey. You were beautiful and brave while you were with us, and you will be sadly missed.  Praying that God's love, and that of Cassie, Gabe, Oliver and Genevieve's family and friends, will be surrounding them all now.