Telethon and Blood Results

We went to Telethon on Saturday night for the opening couple of hours.. Helen and Ray had 4 tickets, and it was awesome fun!!

For those that don't know, Telethon is a 24 hour fundraising effort for the local Children's Hospital - Princess Margaret Hospital. They raise millions of dollars for PMH, and there are a lot of celebrities and entertainment for the audience.

Helen and Ray came over at lunch time for a play as they had an appointment near us, then we went to lunch and out and about (a bit about that as the photos appear).

Here are Jasper and Ray at our place being tough guys with their guns and light sabres.. very funny.

Before Telethon started we had some hours to kill, so we went to PMH (the hospital). Sounds strange? Well, they have a great area on the top floor called the MegaZone. It has heaps of fun stuff for the kids that are in the hospital, and as regular "customers" at 3B (the oncology ward we are treated at), we can go up too.

They have a lot of the celebrities come through over the Telethon weekend, and we managed to see Fat Cat!! Here is Jassie with him..

It was pretty cool, but Fat Cat is not as big as I remember.... or as fat!!!

here are the kids having some fun at the MegaZone.. air hockey. there are also playstation games etc, and it is all free!!! Jasper loved it, it was his first visit, but definately not the last!!

They had a balloon making man there, and Jasper got a pink sword.. here are Jas and Ray being tough on the way out of the MegaZone

The boys were pretty tired when we got to the Telethon, but had some cheeky attitude left!

Jasper and I did not get home until midnight, he did so well, and was so tired the next day!!

Cuddles and snuggles with Helen made Jas feel better!

We saw some famous people.. Here is Damien Leith - he was the Australian Idol winner a year ago, or something like that. He is Irish and has the best voice!

Here is Vanessa Amarossi.. she is another great Aussie singer. She is so totally tiny and has the most powerful voice. Awesome!

There were some more celebs, but I thought I would post a video instead.. you need to listen real careful, but at the end of this (it is only 45 seconds) you can hear the guy call out "Jasper and Ray from 3B at Princess Margaret Hospital want to encourage everyone out there to donate". There is some applause over the start of this, but we heard it and were pretty excited!! It was 9.30 at night by this stage, so the boys were getting over it, but still not wanting to go home!!

They ended up raising over $7million for Telethon, so it was totally awesome. It is all for the kids, so it is really nice to have contributed and been a part of it!

So, we had an appointment at PMH for Jasper to have bloods done (just regular 3 monthly bloods), and the short story is that Jasper's blood ROCKS!! He is so healthy and good, we are pretty happy with that!!!

We spoke to the head of the oncology department, and I really needed this. When Jasper was first diagnosed, we had the head of department look after us. He retired in August last year, and our file was just given to another doctor. I have never really connected with him, and am not happy with some of the information he has given us.

I rang the hospital to see when our next bloods were due.. there was nothing in the system.. one of the reasons I do not like the doctor we had - we have blood tests done EVERY 3 months.. no changes no adjustments. When I said that we needed another appointment, I made sure that we would see the head of the department so we could get some stuff sorted.. and boy, did we!!!

I feel really good with where we are sitting now. All is very positive.

Jasper even let me take a photo of him with his blood.. they had to take 10mL for some HLA antibody testing.. nothing to worry about, just to have it!

here is my tough boy with his blood... the first one is with all 10mL and the second is with just one of the vials.. He loves to hold it!!!