Yeah right, Clive!

I haven’t posted in a while. I intended to post every day, but in hindsight that was totally unrealistic. I am now finally strong enough to fire up the laptop and type some words, but I’ll keep this one brief and post again soon with a detailed diary of whats been happening.

Here is what happened in a nutshell:

The day after my last post, day 6 of BEAM was Melphalan day. That’s the drug (a derivative of mustard gas) that destroys your mouth and stomach lining. I sucked ice lollies like mad (ice-cold helps prevent too much damage). That actually went okay, only took about 15 minutes, but the build-up mentally was extreme and I was exhausted afterwards. The next day was stem cell transplant day. Wow what a freak out! We took loads of photos and a couple of videos so will post them here soon. I went from there back up to the hotel where I waited until about 10pm for my room on the isolation ward to be ready. I spent the next 16 days in isolation. It was tougher than I could ever have imagined to be honest. First off was fatigue like I have never known before.the mouth pain and upset stomach to the extreme. Then the hair loss. Sudden and total (well, my eyebrows/leg hairs survived somehow!). Then came the high temperatures and being pumped full of IV antibiotics and fluids 24/7. Finally blood transfusions and platelets due to flat-lining blood counts (as predicted). On day 12 my white blood count started improving and things got better from there, slowly but surely.

The end came suddenly when the doc came in last Thursday and said I was well enough to recover at home. So home I came and have been hibernating and regenerating ever since. We’re off back to the hospital today to clinic for a proper debrief. More to follow….