A room with a view.

Hi All,

Thanks a mill for all the continued dinners, help, love, prayers and general support. Everything is going as well as could be expected. Ashling is being a total trooper, just getting on with the business of accepting more weights and shortening her day as much as possible with chocolate, visitors, netflix and a TINY bit of school work.

We were moved to a room on our own a few days ago, which has made it much easier. We were first put in a room with 4 patients, then in a room with 2 patients (one of whom was a significant snorer!) and now we have our OWN room, wand it even has a view and a little outdoor area. This means we can sit outside sometimes, which makes things a bit more normal- and the weather has really been playing its part too- just perfect.

We look out at Auckland sky tower, which is all lit up at night. The pictures don't really do it justice but it gives you an idea. We have brought in our camping shelves and fairy lights and made the room like a home away from home, as cosy as possible. Ger and I have been playing tag-team at the hospital. One of us is by Ashling's side all day and night so we haven't seen much of each other, but we know that this is all temporary.

Ashling is getting great care in the hospital. The nurses are just fantastic, going about their job with a constant smile and they really want to support Ash as much as they can. We are feeling very grateful for our experience at Starship thus far.

We have now been given a date for Ashling's back surgery- Wed 26th Feb, so about 2 more weeks of halo gravity traction and then they will remove the halo when she is having her back surgery.

Our weight lifting girl is now managing to hold 7 kilos- they are aiming for half her weight, which would be 15. But they say that they rarely manage that.

Anything from here if a bonus as far as we are concerned.

Ok, over and out for now.

Lots of love from us XXX