Blake's Lymphoma Battle

On the 5th of November 2019 Blake was diagnosed with Lymphoma (cancer) at Greymouth Hospital. The next day he was transported to Christchurch Hospital for more tests and so treatment could be commenced. Blake was accompanied by his Mum and Dad, Ann-Maree and Dave. After a few days Dave returned to the coast to go back to work while Ann-Maree stayed to continue supporting Blake. After a PET scan and biopsy Blake was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The Oncology team in Christchurch started Blake on a chemotherapy regime and advised Blake and his family that they were confident that this cancer could be "cured".

After almost 2 weeks in Christchurch Blake was able to return home and was lucky enough to be able to have his fortnightly treatments in the chemotherapy day ward at Greymouth which meant that life got back to some kind of normalality with Ann-Maree also returning to work.

Blake had a follow up PET scan on the 25th February to check the success of his treatment. He had an appointment to see the Lymphoma Specialist the next day to get the results. Unfortunately the news was not good with the doctor advising them that the lymphoma was "getting worse." The chemotherapy that Blake had undergone in the previous 4 months had had little to no effect and the scan had showed an increase in size of some of the tumours along with some new tumours.

Blake now needs to commence a course of more aggressive chemotherapy to try and treat his cancer. This treatment will require Blake to spend 3 nights in Christchurch hospital every 3 weeks. This will mean that Ann-Maree will need to take unpaid leave from work to accompany him for these treatments.

Blake will also be needing a bone marrow transplant after a few rounds of this new chemotherapy to give him the best possible chance of beating it. He will need to be in Christchurch hospital for several weeks for this to happen.