Day 89 to Day 122: Turning 22!

So, last Saturday it was my birthday! I want to thank everyone for my birthday wishes, cards and presents. I had a wonderful day in the Cairngorms with Sam where we went for a beautiful walk and had a leisurely lunch. Reaching 22 seems pretty poignant to me as I have been through so much in the past year, and I am so grateful to still be here - as cheesy as it may seem; I am truly happy to be alive. I just want to thank everyone for all their support over the past year - all of you that have been following my story have helped me through all of this, and it is your support that has helped me stay positive. So, thank you!

Since I last wrote, Day 100 has been and gone. This was supposed to be a fairly significant day as I was due to start coming off some of my drugs. However, due to the fact that I had GVHD and that I am still taking steroids this could not happen - so we have to wait another couple of weeks for me to come off my steroids before any other changes can be made.

In the good news, my blood sugars have been stable, so hopefully by the time the steroids are finished I will be able to stop checking them every day. However, there have also been some more blips along the way - during one of my regular blood checks Dr. Gordon picked up some abnormalities in my blood. Basically, the immune suppressant I was taking, cyclisporine, was causing some of my platelets and red blood cells to be consumed, meaning that I was very low on platelets. Apparently this can be quite common in patients who have had GVHD. Luckily, all I had to do was stop taking the cyclisporine immediately and start taking an alternative immune suppressant.

It was also discovered that I was low in B12. Usually people who are low in B12 are vegan, which suggests that the problem is not that I am not ingesting enough B12, but that my body is not absorbing it properly. This means that I now have to have B12 injections every 3 months.


Last Thursday I had a bone marrow biopsy. I got my results back this week and they are slightly mixed - the fantastic news is there is no sign of leukemia in my bone marrow. However, in less good news, there is still some of my own bone marrow present, i.e. it is not all the donor's bone marrow. This means that there is still a chance that the leukemia will come back. So, technically, I don't have cancer any more, but I'm still not all clear as there is still a chance I could relapse. To try and fix this problem the doctors are going to start reducing my immune suppressant and hopefully the donor cells will start to kick into action. I will need another bone marrow biopsy in about 8 weeks to see how things are progressing - so, fingers crossed things go well!