I have a donor!

After 5 months of waiting, hoping and praying; a donor has finally been found for me! A very kind 29 year old man from the UK has agreed to donate his bone marrow and given me the chance of life. To that man - I do not know who you are, but I am and will always be so grateful to you. This donation has given me hope of a future, and I will not be wasting it. Thank you so much.

After we found out this incredible news it was decided that my date of admission to the Beatson in Glasgow would be 29th October. I have been bursting to tell you all my good news for a while, but I didn't want to tempt fate. Even when a donor is found, things can still go wrong to delay the procedure; for example, if I fell ill it would not be able to go ahead, or the donor may have last minute, important commitments. So, there are many things to take into consideration, and it was very possible that things could be delayed... which unfortunately has been the case.

Firstly I had a little bit of a cold, so I needed to have a virus check to make sure that it was not anything more serious. This involved my consultant sticking swabs down my throat and up my nose - which was not very pleasant, but my watering eyes seemed to give the doctor a good laugh. Luckily when the results came back we found out that it was nothing more than the common cold, so there was nothing to worry about.

However, a few days later I developed a small lump at the top of my right thigh. The doctor said it was an inflamed hair follicle. I was given antibiotics for it, but everyone agreed that it should not stop the transplant. So, after a couple of scares it seemed that I was fit and healthy, ready for the transplant, and we got up early yesterday to head to Glasgow for admission.

We arrived at the Beatson at about 11am, and throughout the day the nurses kept popping in for blood samples etc, but it was not until about 4pm that we saw a doctor. It was then that we received some unanticipated news  - the transplant would have to be delayed. There was an issue with the donor. This is where it starts to get slightly complicated, so you will have to bare with me. Usually people donate their stem cells via the blood, which was the preferred option of my donor, but unfortunately something has gone wrong and he cannot donate his stem cells in this way. This means that the only way he can donate is through a small procedure extracting some of his bone marrow. It sounds horrible, I know, but this involves only a minor surgical procedure under general anesthetic. Unfortunately, due to the short notice of discovering this, no operating theatres were available for the procedure until next week. This meant the transplant would be delayed until then, and we had a nice three-hour long drive back home!

Unfortunately, even this new proposed date is subject to change: all my scheduled radiotherapy appointments will have to be rescheduled at short notice for next week, as well as ensuring all goes well at the donors end. Basically this will involve a huge feat of organisation.

I have to admit that I was a little gutted at the news. I know that the pre-transplant conditioning of chemotherapy and radiotherapy will not be a very nice experience, so I had got myself pretty psyched up for it and just wanted to get it over and done with. However, I'm not letting myself get too down as I know that I am very lucky really - I have a donor! So, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter when the transplant happens, at least I know that it will happen; every day that passes is simply another day closer to being better.

Maintenance

Last Thursday I started my maintenance period, which is a relatively easy going period of treatment consisting of only a small amount of chemotherapy and lots of tablets to take at home. The idea is that this will keep me on an even keel until we learn more about when my bone marrow transplant will be. The amount of drugs that I will be taking will be adjusted each week to make sure that my blood results remain fairly stable - we obviously want to make sure that the leukemia does not come back, but we also don't want to affect my blood counts too much as this will put me at much higher risk of infection, and if I were to catch something then this would delay my transplant unnecessarily. So, really, its just a balancing act at the moment until we get more information.

Whilst we are waiting around I have been undergoing a number of tests to make sure that my body is in full working order for when the transplant does take place. On Monday I had a heart scan, which consisted of receiving a radioactive injection before they traced my heart in a scanner for 15 minutes. I had a heart scan back in June, and I can tell you that that did not go terribly well - it was the day after my first lumber puncture, and the injection ended up making me sick and I was left with an awful migraine for about 3 or 4 days. However, it went much more successfully this time! I had no reactions to the injection and it was all over very quickly, thank goodness.

On Tuesday I had a visit to the dentist. So far I have been lucky in my treatment and I have not had any problems with my mouth. I went through a period of everything tasting of metal, and everything still to this day tastes very salty, but other than that, I have been very lucky - many people suffer with ulcers to the point that they cannot eat anything at all as it is too painful. However, I could have all of this yet to come! So, it was important to see the dentist to make sure any major problems were fixed before my transplant. I was a little worried about the outcome as I have not been to see a dentist in roughly three years... (naughty, I know)... but other than a little staining the dentist was happy with my teeth. She did make me promise to register to a dentist after treatment is over though...

On Thursday I had to undergo a kidney test. I had another kidney test at the end of August to make sure that I was alright to go ahead with Phase 3 of my treatment, so it was much the same again this time. Simply a radioactive injection followed by taking blood tests throughout the day to measure how quickly the kidneys were getting rid of the radioactivity. This went very smoothly, the only boring part of the day was all the waiting around, but thanks to the Maggies Centre, there is always somewhere comfortable to go with tea and biscuits

Whilst all of this has been going on I've still been enjoying being at home. We had a few days of nice weather last week, so we definitely made the most of it by going on plenty of walks. My favourite of all of these was a trip to Balmedie Beach - the weather was gorgeous, and hardly anyone was there which made it all the more beautiful. Since the hurricane seems to have hit our shores this week I'm glad we made the most of our very short Indian Summer!