"Pedal 4 Paul" special

Once again, a bit of a delay since the last blog post. This is good. No news is good news. As I reported on the most recent post, Tabby is now on her Maintenance Chemotherapy. This is a more predictable regime of 4 weekly cycles. Week one consists of daily steroids then after week 2 a day in hospital, general anaesthetic and more spinal chemotherapy. The rest of the time is daily mercaptopurine – and some other stuff.  Tonight, for example, Tabby had  a total of 10 tablets to swallow. I am amazed how she does it. Lastly she had to swallow 5ml of some syrup. Having taken it I told her she had to jump up and down quickly.

“Why am I jumping up and down Dad?”

“Because I forgot to shake to bottle!”   - The old ones are the best?!?.

Two weekends ago we were given 2 tickets to see the ballet, “Cinderella” at the Festival Theatre.  These were donated by a local charity. Donella took Tabby and they both really enjoyed the event.

The big event of the last few days was the Glasgow – Edinburgh cycle ride. A few friends and I joined the “Pedal 4 Paul” team raising funds for the charity “It’s good 2 give” . The evening before the event, Tabby and I went to a bar-b-q to get our team tee shirts and a banner to put at the bottom of our driveway. Our house is actually on the cycle route. Lynne, the Founder of the charity asked Tabby what other  goodies would she like to have in the ward fridge apart from juice, fruit and fromage frais. Tabby replied, “raw carrots, humous, pepperami, cheese strings and a beer for Dad”.

Tabby and Paul's banner

The next morning, having put up the banner at the bottom of our driveway we all set off for Glasgow.  We arrived at Glasgow Green at 8am, joined the queue to start and set off on our bikes at 9.15. The first 10 miles were chaotic – lots of traffic, traffic lights and 9,000 other cyclist. We stopped at Avonbridge where we met up with Donella and Michelle, who were also doing the ride but had decided to avoid the “Official start” at Glasgow Green. At Linlithgow we stopped and met up with Paul’s  mum, Ruth, albeit arriving an hour or so later than we had planned.  In exchange for muffins, Ruth got a hug from 5 sweaty cyclists. When we arrived at Kirkliston, our banner was still up and we were met by Tabby, Olivia , Ewan, Sean and sister in law Ruth who plied us with Champagne and Pizza -so much better than Gatorade and energy gels. 

Ruth, Tabby, Sean, Olivia and Ewan

After the champagne, the next 10 miles to Edinburgh drifted past – almost effortlessly.  We finished up at Murrayfield Stadium and met up with Lynne and the gang once more.  When we got home, I found Donella making tea and coffee for other “Pedal 4 Paul” team members who were still cycling through Kirkliston. All in all, it was a great day in so many ways and thankyou to all of you who sponsored me and my pals with our current total creeping up to £3,000.

Tabby’s hair has continued to grow back. It has not come back red although when I picked her up from school today in the pouring rain, it was all spikey.  With a set of dungarees, she would be the spitting image or “Oor Willie”

No harm trying things out!

At the moment, Tabby is doing pretty well, she is back at school, has returned to Sunday school and is back at her swimming lessons. She wanted to play tennis today, but we are well aware that she is a bit thin and finds long walks and stairs a challenge and really cannot run because of leg pains and muscle wasting. I am sure it will all comeback. Anyway, as things go I plan to reduce blog posts to a monthly post which, I hope,  will reflect a less eventful few months ahead.

Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the poor chap, who I overtook on the cycle run as we approached the Cramond Brig. Seeing this bloke on his bike wearing a green padded suit I thought he was a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle”.

“Hey are you Donatello or Leonardo?” I called out as I breezed past.

“Naw, ye ejit. Ah’m the Incredible Hulk”. Concerned I may have made him angry, I accelerated away.

Al, Johnnie, Angus, Tabby, Me (Cycle shorts issue!) & Derek

As ever, thanks for reading,

The Lawsons