- Thursday 17 Jan.
A group of doctors met on Wednesday and decided it was either osteo sarcoma which responds well to chemo, or mfh of bone sarcoma which doesn't! We are obviously praying it is the osteo one. Prof. Toner gave us a rough plan of what the treatment plan will be. 10 weeks of various chemo, then remove the shin bone affected by the tumor, followed by 20 - 30 weeks of chemo again. He then listed off various possible side affects of chemo. This was pretty overwhelming initially, because now it wasn't just the cancer, which seemed more than enough on it's own!

There were things like the possibility of dying from a simple old cold, sometimes leukemia can be caused by chemo, infertility, tinitis (ringing in your ears forever), pins and needles in hands and feet and other things I don't remember. It seemed pretty daunting. We sort of needed to try not to think to much about them all. So again, after about one day of dealing with this, it seemed alright again.

- Tuesday 15 Jan.
Had our first appointment with Prof Toner (again, amazing to have expert in Sarcoma chemotherapy one hour away). Not able to tell us too much because still unsure which type of sarcoma it was.

- Saturday 12 Jan.
Had a lovely day at Anglesea beach with Fiona and the kids.

- Thursday 10 Jan.
We had an appointment with Professor Choong. It was amazing to be diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and to have one of the top specialists in sarcomas, in the world one hour down the road. We were having constant reminders of answered prayers.

It was scary sitting in his office as he looked over the results. He confirmed it was a sarcoma, but they weren't sure what kind it was because there was no bone tissue found in the biopsy. They were pretty sure it was one of three kinds (there are about 50 kinds of sarcomas). He told us that Simon would have chemotherapy, then an operation to remove the shin bone affected by the tumor, followed up by a bit of chemotherapy. He also told us that the success rate was about 75%. This was better news than we had recieved on Friday 21st of December, but not as good as we thought we recieved on Thursday 3rd Jan. We thought "unlikely to die from it" meant more like a 95% success rate or something. I guess we had also started to think that it wasn't as likely to be a sarcoma from what the doctor had said. Still, we were thankful for this positive news and after about one day of not feeling too great, started to feel OK again.

- Wednesday 9 Jan.
Fiona arrived from England for her first trip to Australia. This was REALLY exciting. It was just great to have her here for two weeks, especially knowing that he wasn't riddled with tumors! It went too quickly.

- Thursday 3 Jan.
At the end of the tests for that day Marika told us that a doctor was going to come and talk to us. We were'nt sure why and wondered if it was bad news. We had been able to see the scans as they were happening which was weird. Simon hadn't wanted to in-case he was riddled with tumors or we would see things that we would read too much into, but Marika assured us it would be OK to see.

We had seen things that looked the same color as his tumor, so thought it had possibly spread, so prayed like crazy while we waited for what seemed like 1 hour but was about 5 minutes for the Doctor who was able to tell us that there were no signs of other tumors and the shading we saw in his other shin was probably arthritis. This was amazingly great news. Up until this moment we had really thought because of the aggressive nature of sarcomas, that it would be everywhere. The Doctor told us that it would be unlikely that he would lose his leg or die from this. She even thought that the activity shown in the scans meant it may not even be a sarcoma. It seemed like the best news we had ever had!

- Wednesday 2 Jan.
The tests finally began at St Vincent's hospital. Marika, the lady doing the tests was really, really lovely. A perfect lady to be doing these tests and helping us to feel at ease. I was allowed in for most of the tests. Over 3 days he had chest x-rays, bone scans, tissue scans, and a biopsy.

- Had a nice few days over new year with friends and family. Our wonderful cousin Stephen (a doctor) was able to speak to a specialist in Melbourne and told us that things had changed alot since he and Dr Sheehan had last learnt about Sarcomas, that now losing a limb was a last resort. This was very lovely news to have while we waited for tests etc...

- Tuesday 25 Dec.
Again amazed at what a lovely day we had. Went up to McDiarmid's for Christmas lunch and dinner with everyone. Carolyn and I kicked a football at Simon, trying to get a goal, but not.

- Monday 24 Dec.
Had scooter races at Sparrow Park, then Christmas Eve camping on lounge room floor, watched Drummer Boy with kids then when they fell asleep (not until 10.30) watched It's a wonderful life which we watch every year. It was amazing that we were having really nice times. We had moments of overwhelming sadness, but for anyone who knows what a boo-hoo baby I am even when things aren't actually sad, this was certainly weird and an obvious answer to prayer. Meanwhile Simon of course played on the cancer "Ooh, I can't do this, oooh I couldn't possibly do that" (said in high pitched voice).

- Sunday 23 Dec.
Overwhelmed at church at how blessed we are to be surrounded by such amazingly lovely people.

- Saturday 22 Dec. Simon's 34th birthday.
Well, my presents to Simon, a book and a pair of flip-flops (thongs) seemed a bit cruel, because if he didn't die, he was only going to have one leg, and the title of the book that he'd wanted was "Heaven and Hell, what happens after death" so that was interesting! We managed to have a better day than we thought we would. We had a fun morning playing with the kids and had a yummy dinner at mum's with the family. The nicest thing was the love and support shown from friends and family. We had so many calls, letters and emails from people, prayer meetings organised, endless offers of help, and all of them genuine. We felt (and continue to feel) very, very blessed.

- Friday morning 21 December.
I was at the hairdresser when I noticed I had three missed calls on my phone from Simon. I called him back and he asked where I was as he had finished work early for the Christmas break. I told him I was nearly finished and would meet him down the road at mum's as she was looking after the kids. I didn't suspect anything, I was just excited to see him waiting across the road when I got out. As we hugged I realised something was wrong and he told me he had to go in to the doctor as the MRI had shown the bump was actually a tumor. It was a bit of a shock. A couple of hours later we were at the doctor's. As we walked in, before we'd even sat down he started saying the news wasn't too good. Most of what he said seems a bit of a blur, but he kept saying the word "sarcoma". I had never heard of this, so made him write it down. He said it is the most aggressive form of bone cancer and a good outcome would be to lose his leg rather than his life. Simon kept suggesting they take his leg off now, Dr Sheehan told him he was being irrational. The next appointment was with Prof. Choong at St.Vincents in Melbourne on the 10th of Jan. This seemed too long for Simon and he again suggested they just take his leg off now! I didn't think it seemed too long, until I was actually waiting. We left the doctor's with heavy hearts and a piece of paper with the word sarcoma scribbled on it. We sat in our car outside the doctor's, in the rain for quite a while. Wondering what to do next. We cried a bit, we prayed alot. It was pretty sad and scary calling people and telling them, especially Fiona (Simon's mum) in England. At this time it seemed more likely that he would'nt make it. We were supposed to be going out for dinner that night for Simon's birthday (the next day). So we tried, we sat in the restaurant looking at the menu and decided the songs the pianist was playing were too sad, so we went organic food shopping instead and had a surprisingly nice time. It took about two days of lots of ups and downs to start to feel OK and begin dealing with it all.

The beginning...
OK, I am going to try to be organised about this so that people can be up to date on what's happening with Simon and the cancer etc... I apoligise in advance if I turn out to be not so organised.

Well it all really started back in October at our church's annual fundraising footy match. Simon, being so good at footy (!) was of course playing and while quite possibly running away from the ball, someone's head (thankfully) fell on his left shin. It didn't bother him too much though, as he also hurt his back, so was busy crying about that. A couple of months later his shin was still a bit sore and a bump that Simon only noticed after the footy match, was still there so he went to the doctor to check it out. The doctor wasn't too concerned as bruised shins often take a couple of months to heal, but advised him to have an ultra sound and MRI to rule out bone cancer.