An amazing week

What a week this was. After last post a lot has happened and where do I start. Saskia was allowed home on 9th May. She still needs to take daily medication for the infection in her arm and she receives twice daily from a nurse-at-home an injection to reduce the blood-clothing. Saskia needs to be pushed around in a wheelchair as she gets very quickly tired, but she feels good and is in high spirits.
But before Saskia got out of hospital she got an absolute surprise present from all my colleagues at Maritime Constructions. Below follows the text (or at least part of it) from what Amy Kretschmer and Carmen Fiedler wrote after they gave Saskia her gift:

"...we all wanted to do something to help, and we knew the best way would be to do something for Saskia that would make her smile. So we set out to raise some money, expecting to put together a little gift to lift her spirits.  To our complete surprise, our little office pulled together and raised $1,182.00!

With this amount of money, we were able to make one of Saskia’s dreams come true – we got her her very own iPad.

On Tuesday, Carmen Fiedler and I took our daughters to visit Saskia in the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, to deliver her gift on behalf of everyone at MC. When we handed her the package, she pulled out an iPad cover, and looked a little bit confused. She then took another look and discovered her very own iPad, and could not believe her eyes! For the next 15 minutes she may well have been in shock; she giggled, hyperventilated and looked like she might even cry.  The only words she could muster were  I… got… an… iPad!!!’ 

 

I wish I had a video of her reaction to show you all just how much your generosity meant to this gorgeous little girl. We certainly achieved our goal of lifting her spirits.....

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An iPad might be seen as just another ordinary modern electronic gadget, but for Saskia with her condition, it is actually a pretty amazing tool. On it she can skype with her family in Singapore even in hospital. She plays games, watches video's, is on facebook, makes notes, photo's and does some art. Saskia does not have to carry a whole bag of stuff with her when she goes to hospital and she does not have to watch all those repeats which are on television. All in all it is an amazing present, which we are all very thankful for.

Another one of those special moments was the day that Saskia was allowed to leave hospital. I will write a little later about the various support groups that exists to assist children with cancer and their families, but I do like to mention the "Little Heroes Foundation". One of the founding fathers of this foundation is Chris McDermott, a well known Australian Rules Footy Player back in the eighties and early nineties. On wednesday he was doing a promotion for the Little Heroes Foundation which involved a photo shoot with three children under treatment for cancer. Saskia was asked to be one of those children due to her bubbly personality and amazing smile! 

Saskia was so excited and rightly so! One of the photo's will most likely be used for the cover of the next edition of the white pages, but that's all supposed to be a secret....(oops).

The Little Heroes Foundation does a lot for these children. One of the things they do is provide free admission tickets to all kinds of shows. For last Sunday we received 6 tickets to go to the magic "Razzamatazz" show. A show filled with magic, dance and acrobatic tricks. During one part of the show Arjen was asked to be the assistant of the magician! Arjen went on stage in front of hundreds of people and together with Michael Boyd the illusionist, he performed the most amazing tricks! We tried to take a couple of photo's but they all failed. However the scenes are forever in our minds!

Marcel received some very good news this week as well - he has been selected for the soccer reps team for the Adelaide Hills as well as for his school Cornerstone in Mount Barker!

All in all a very good week and an everyday smile on Saskia's face! It definitely prepares her for this week where she will receive another lot of chemo as of Thursday through till Saturday.