MOVING ON UP

Already two days into 2013. My, how time flies! Been a tricky few days. My neutrophil counts continued to fall, yesterday the levelled out at 0.036 and today they have managed a tiny about- turn and moved up to 0.04. Which is minuscule, but gives me hope that things may be going in the right direction. Oh, I hope so. This faffing about at almost 0.0 is doing my head in. I am not sure which is the hardest, the psychological or the physical. It's an uncomfortable see-saw whichever.

Suffering still from nausea. Horrible. They try to control it with injections. They feel like wasps stings. Also have to have injections into my stomach everyday, something called GCSF, which promotes growth of neutrophils (not that it seems to be doing much promoting at the moment).

On 31st I was wheelchaired down to the endoscopy unit. Was dreading the whole event (it had been preceded by me throwing up all my morning tablets which I had had to take on an empty stomach. Fifteen of the buggers). Staff in the unit were very good. Capable hands. I had oxygen pipes clipped into my nose and a Hannibal Cannibal contraption fitted over my teeth and mouth to stop me from biting down on the tube they were going to insert. Then they sedated me and I don't remember much after that. Some gagging and gurgling. The process takes about 5 minutes. Camera down into my stomach, through to large and small intestine, taking biopsies along the way. Next thing I was in the recovery room and then being wheeled back to the ward (spotty hooded dressing gown and mask). Luigi was waiting for me with homemade soup, which went down a treat. One more horror over. And, as I suspected, initial reports seem to show everything is ok. No GVHD, which is what they were looking for.

Today I had a long bone marrow procedure. It's weird how some people can do it so much quicker than others. This was a young doctor, clearly taking a lot of trouble to try and give me minimum pain, but she just succeeded in drawing out the process, ultimately making me more stressed. It hurts like hell whatever!

I have returned to Bruce Willis lookalike. A five minute buzz with the ward clippers and all the dropping hair has gone. Which is a relief. Too much in my mouth!

Thanks for all the blog messages, texts, emails, etc. it has been great to hear from so many dear friends. Glad you are all still on this journey with me. Means a great deal. Thank you. Hope everyone one has recovered from seasonal revelries. Now time to strike out into 2013. Next stop, my birthday! Back soon. tch xx