January 30th 2009

Olivia on the merry go round

Tonight, Olivia participated in the graduation ceremony of the Lizzie Wagner Junior Modelling course.  The ceremony was also for the older students who were participating in another of Lizzie’s courses.  The kids performed a group routine, followed by a ‘photographic’ segment where they had to walk around the room and pause to strike a pose.  There were about eight poses all up.  Well, Olivia came out and once she got close to us (we were sitting on the side), she posed and stuck out her tongue.  Our first reaction was to laugh but when she continued to do it for the rest of her poses, we were embarrassed and realised she was being silly.  It was a case of, it was funny the first time but then she just took it too far.

All of the kids received a certificate at the conclusion of the ceremony.  Olivia was being a little precocious at the end of the show – not doing what she was told, being silly and rude to everyone. James and I were quite embarrassed by her behaviour.  We realised that she was incredibly tired but her behaviour was too much.  After a good talking to and a big sleep, she managed to settle down over the next few days.

January 23rd 2009

James and I were lucky enough to have a night out tonight, thanks to a lovely lady by the name of Melissa, who works for Mallesons…….  She kindly donated two tickets to us to see Delta Goodrem and a dinner voucher to use at Cream restaurant.  She won them at a silent auction at work.  She said that she bid on them, knowing that she wanted to give them to us because she thought we deserved to have some time out together.  We were so deeply touched and humbled by this very kind and generous gesture, especially since neither James nor I knew her.  She knew of us through one of her work colleagues and we have a mutual friend.  We had a fantastic night and we definitely needed it – thank you, Melissa!

January 22nd 2009

 took Sarah with me today while Olivia attended the modelling course.  We just waited around in the foyer.  I took a few activities to amuse Sarah.  After a while she thought it might be fun to hop on and off the couch.  After warning her a couple of times about the inappropriateness of this, she sat calmly next while I was reading a magazine and in the next minute, she decided to bounce of the couch, head first.  Her head crashed into the coffee table in front of us.  I immediately picked her up and boy, did she scream!  I took a quick look at her head as it looked like a nasty fall but didn’t notice anything (I think I was afraid I might see something I didn’t want to see).  I cuddled her tight.  The lady next to me then noticed blood gushing from her head.  I looked and saw that she had split her head open just above her right eyebrow.  There was blood everywhere!  The cut was about two centimetres long and very, very deep!  I knew we were going to hospital.  I called James immediately to come and get us.  In the meantime, my biggest challenge was to calm Sarah down while holding a serviette over her cut. I told her that we were going to go to hospital to fix up her cut.  Her response was, “Will my hair fall out like Oli’s?  Do I have to have chemo?”.  It wasn’t long before Oli came out from her course and burst into tears on seeing Sarah.  She was inconsolable!  I then had to try the impossible task of calming them both down.  Oli was just so worried about Sarah that she kept repeating, “I’m just so worried about Sarah because I love her so much”.  Surprisingly, I remained very calm but it was heartbreaking to see both the girls so upset.


When James arrived he could hear the screaming and on seeing the girls, he realised it was Olivia screaming and not Sarah.  On our way to hospital, Sarah managed to settle down somewhat but Olivia remained in hysterics.


On arriving at the hospital, the nurse placed some gauze on Sarah’s wound.  James took Oli out as they didn’t have anywhere we could wait in isolation and we didn’t want to expose Oli to any germs – believe me, there were a lot of sick looking people waiting there.  Sarah and I had to wait around in the waiting room.  Luckily we didn’t have to wait too long.  Sarah had picked up quite a lot, in fact, she was joking around and laughing.  The nurse practitioner looked at the wound and pointed out that the glue would not hold it together as it was too gapey and that it would have to be stitched.  She escorted us to a bed where Sarah was seen to by a doctor.  In order to stitch up the wound, Sarah would require some form of anaesthetic.  She was given Ketamine (which, coincidently, Olivia had during her transplant as a form of pain relief), an injection in her leg.  She screamed – the poor thing.    The creepy thing is, although, she was anaesthetised and unaware of what was going on, her eyes were wide open the whole time.  She required three sutures.  James and Olivia soon returned with some dinner.  In the meantime, Sarah was only just starting to wake from the anaesthetic.  She was extremely groggy and her speech was very slow and slurred.  It was actually very cute.  It was a while before she was lucid again.  She said some pretty funny things.


We had to remain in hospital for over an hour to ensure that she had fully recovered from the anaesthetic.  What a long day!

January 21st 2009

We headed home from Tuross before lunch as Olivia had been invited by Lizzie Wagner (whom we met at the race day last year) to participate in a junior modelling course at the Diplomat Hotel.  The course was to run over several days this week and next week for an hour and a half.

January 18th 2009

The girls and I decided to pack up our things and head down to Tuross until Wednesday.  Mum came with us while James remained behind as he was returning to work that week. The weather was beautiful and we managed to spend every day at the beach which is what the girls love doing.  However, we always have to be mindful of Olivia as the medication she is on makes her highly sensitive to the sun.  This means lots of sunscreen and a beach umbrella.

Our Beautiful Girl