Ciara had her MRI scan today in what was a very long day starting at about 4.45am.

Yesterday we had to take Ciara to Portlaoise to have a platelet and blood transfusion as she'd had a nosebleed all morning. Of course we were prepared to go to hospital as it was a public holiday in Ireland. We've spent every public holiday in hospital since last October for one reason or another. Yvonne stayed at home last night as she wasn't feeling too hot so it was just her nibs and myself off to do the bloods. We didn't get home until about 11.30pm and had to be up to make a 7am admission in Dublin the following morning. The Road Hauliers Association were planning a go-slow of trucks on the M50 (Dublin orbital) starting at 5am so we set off good and early to miss it all. We missed everything and got there an hour early.

For some reason we were given an admission time of 7am for a lunch-time scan When we heard about this last week we got it checked out to make sure it was right, and sure enough it was. When we got in today they were wondering why we were there so early! After an hour in a waiting room with a sick little Ciara, I went for a walk to make a call to the oncology department to find out what was going on. They soon got us shifted into a room and while we still had to wait but at least it was quiet. Everyone apologised profusely.

She had the scan at about 12 under general anaesthetic and was out and hour later in a foul mood and not at all impressed with being there. She'd been fasting since the night before and was generally fed up and has been very down since her last chemo session on Thursday which totally knocked her for six.

The good news is that all is going how it should be. The preliminary results show that the primary and secondary tumours are smaller. We knew this was going to be the result as she had been getting on so well in herself but it's good to get it confirmed. We had some worry this morning as it looked like her eye had swollen up again but her consultant thinks it's just oedema or swelling from fluids.