Day 0 - the stem cells are in

The last couple of days have been rough, although I am told I got off reasonably lightly compared to some people. Side effects included nausea, the runs, interesting hot flushes and slight hallucinations when trying to sleep. A bit like experiencing holiday excesses and the menopause with a bad trip thrown in. I had vast amounts of fluid given by drip over a 24 hour period which meant a visit to the loo every 45 minutes or so during that period.

Today I feel a lot better and am even eating a little bit of food again. (Just off for another quick visit to the loo.) I have had more anti- rejection drugs and antiviral to add to the antifungal and antibiotics I have been on already. Just after 1 o'clock  2 bags of stem cells arrived from my donor. They didn't harvest quite enough from my donor on the first (I am rather a big bloke) so they took a second harvest the next day. Now the magic begins. This is when the stem cells circulating in my blood migrate to the bone marrow and start producing new and healthy blood cells. 

Ros and I, other other transplant patients cannot thank the donors more - if you are not a donor but are in good enough health, please sign up.