On Friday morning Dave and I went to the Trinity College Blackham Environmental Centre which is a block of native scrub up near my mum and dad's place. We went on a bus with some other Trinity folk and trundled up to have a look at the new facilities. There was tea and coffee and delicious morning tea treat, made by Trinity catering students of course! It was a good morning and nice to be there to see another part of Trinity. It's almost sad how much we still enjoy being part of the Trinity community.
After that we dashed home, picked up some spag bol we had made, dropped it off at the community house in Gawler for the community lunch, went to pick up the girls, went home for a couple of hours so that Elsie could have a rest and we could do a few things to prepare for her party, left home again to take the girls to grandma's before going to the RAH for my 4pm appointment. After my appointment we had to hang around for me to get a blood test, then back to grandma's to let her know the results and home again around 7.30pm. We did a few more jobs in preparation for Sunday and then went to bed.
On Saturday Dave and I went to the Hilton in Adelaide to the Leukaemia Foundation's Patient Education Day. There was a talk about clinical trials from a professor, a guy who had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and his wife spoke of their experience and we also went to a session on diet and exercise during and after cancer. They were all interesting and worthwhile going to. In addition to that though, there was morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea which were all extremely delicious.
Dave and I each got a free pen with two exciting features - a squidgy grip section that can be moulded to the individual and a blue light that glows in the grip section every second time the pen is clicked on. Only thing better than a free pen is a free pen with features.
As with any conference/education session there were the regular characters:
- the sleeper - one lady was so asleep her head would gradually get lower and lower and then she would sit up again (still eyes closed) and then it would go down again. It was slightly amusing, particularly when another lady next to her asked a question of the speaker and the sleeper was not roused at all.
- people who ask weird personal questions - one guy started his question with 'my mum has altzeimers...'
- people who are too helpful - there were people in the audience who liked to throw in their two bobs worth in answer to a question directed at the speaker. 'When my iron was low.... blah blah'. Thanks, but no one asked you.
I found the professor particularly interesting when he spoke about some of the advances that have been made in the treatment of some cancers. They've made a drug that is able to target only cancerous cells for a specific cancer. I'm pretty vague on the details I know, sorry, but it was a combo of the biochemistry and pharmacology I did at uni. So then I started to think about the possibility of doing research. Having a crack at a PhD and researching drugs. I'm not really sure it's for me though, it all takes too long. Years and years of work to find out one tiny thing. It's interesting once someone can give you the summary but I don't know that I'm made to chip away at something forever.
We had a good chat with a couple over lunch. The guy had myeloma and is preparing to have a stem cell transplant in the near future. It was great to share some jokes and tell stories with people who had experienced very similar things. Since we live in Adelaide, it was also not very surprising to find that they are good friends with a family that we know.
After the sessions we raced through the central markets to pick up a few things for Sunday then went to Grandma's to collect our children. Home briefly to bake a cake and tidy up a bit more. My parents came to our place and then we went out to a dinner party in Gawler. It was more delicious food and good company with some laughs thrown in. We did make it home and into bed before midnight.
Sunday started with church in the morning. We didn't dilly-dally after the service and instead came home to get ready for Elsie's second birthday party. I decorated the cake as a Dora the Explorer map with a forest, bridge and rocky mountains. It came out quite well.
We had around 20 adults and about a dozen children including three infants. It was a bit crazy. There were frankfurts, sausage rolls, cheezels, fairy bread, cupcakes, honey crackles - all good party foods. Maesie had a gazillion cheezels as she shoved them on all of her fingers over and over. After the party she came down fairly hard from a sugar/orange colour high.
After the party, Gawler West hosted the MacGillivray village. It was the best option at the time but I'm not sure I'll be rushing to host again. I might put a bid in for the 2012 village.
I flopped into a chair about 8pm on Sunday and struggled to get out of it to go to bed.
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