Friday 17 June 2011

6 weeks later

So here we are now 6 weeks post transplant. I'm not feeling at all bad as it goes. I've had some visits from physios who have given me some exercise routines to do each day to help get me walking again. I've also been back to the hospital this week and they are very happy with my progress. They've taken me off one drug called Fragmin which involved a daily injection so that's nice. They also weighed me and I've put on a good few pounds since I was discharged. I've also seen my neurologist this week and he was surprised at how well I'm doing though he was unable to offer any magic potions to help me get back walking quicker. Like all the doctors he says it will be months not days or weeks before I see any real improvement. I'll just have to keep on exercising then.

Friday 10 June 2011

Day 35

It's now 5 weeks since I had my stem cell transplant. In a way it might as well be 5 years because it just feels so long ago. What a distance to have travelled in 5 weeks. I've had a lethal dose of a noxious chemo drug. I've had my stem cells replaced. I've had my blood system reduced to a point where I had no immune system. I had my dignity ripped away as I lost control of my bowels and where I spent hours with my head in a cardboard bowl. I lived on sickly milkshake when I could not taste or chew food. Frankly it was a bloody awful time and it wasn't confined to being in hospital, I still felt rotten when I got home. 5 weeks in though and I'm feeling a lot better. I'm still not mobile but then I wasn't before I had the chemo. I'm starting to taste food again and do have the beginnings of an appetite returning. I'm eating proper food again and have now started doing some exercises to try to build myself back up again. It's taken a while to get this point ands it's good to feel that I'm improving. I wonder what I'll be able to say over the next few weeks and months?

Thursday 2 June 2011

An under estimation

This is for anyone who might find themselves having to undergo heavy dose chemo and bone marrow transplant. You might find that you'll be told that the treatment will result in the worst few weeks of your life. It will be without mistake! You'll puke and piss and you will shit the bed a lot. You won't be able to eat because your mouth will be full of ulcers and everything will taste and feel like cardboard. But what about when, and it will, this all passes over and you go home? No one really prepares you for the way you will feel once out. You've spent 3 weeks in your own room, a room that felt like a safe refuge when you couldn't control your bowels but now, your over that and the boredom of the solitary room sets in and lasts until you go home. You will feel like you've been released but you will also still be ill and in need of recovery. The treatment will have taken a fair bit of weight with it and you'll be weak. You'll also feel very down. So down you'll have really dark thoughts. They will pass with loving care at home and good friends backing you all the way. You'll need to be prepared that you aren't gonna be sweetness and light, you will still be bored because nothing will interest you for more than a few minutes. These things will pass on time as you gradually get better day by day. No one prepared me for this. I thought I'd be out and about once I'd done my "worst few weeks of my life" in hospital. But there are more struggles ahead as youf body restarts after the chemo killed it. Hopefully this piece might help you one day. body r