Vega now has 1,632 beads
At every stage of cancer treatment, children receive a new
Bead of Courage. The beads join together to form (often long) physical representations of their recovery, keeping a record of every hospital trip and treatment on their courageous journey. The Beads of Courage help to decrease illness-related distress and increase positive coping strategies to support children and their families. Over the last two years Vega has collected beads for
chemotherapy, port access, investigations, acts of courage, hair loss… well anything. You name it, there is a bead for it. Here are some numbers…
- 114 weeks, or 798 days on treatment, not including the 16 days left on our countdown.
- 86 nights in hospital. Believe me or not, I think that is pretty good actually, considering the length of treatment.
- Approx 750 individual doses of chemotherapy. Yep, huge number. And I think I rounded that up towards the bottom end. These have been made up from 7 different type of chemotherapy drugs.
- 131 days of steroids. We have 5 more before the end of treatment. 131 days of total misery.
- Approx 300 blood tests. Vega has weekly blood tests but we have had countless weeks when she used to have more than two. Huge amount of lab work.
- 21 blood transfusions.
- 29 x-rays, 1 CT scan, 1 echocardiogram, 1 linogram, 8 ultrasounds.
- 19 lumbar punctures, 3 bone marrow tests, 1 port insertion, 22 general anaesthetics.
- 114 consecutive weeks on antibiotics (weekend only).
