It has been an uneventful week. My health continues to be good, and they have reduced my ciclosporin to just one 25mg tablet per day (the lowest possible dose).
There is a good article on wikipedia about bone marrow transplants here, which discusses the "mixed chimerism" effect where both my stem cells and my brothers stem cells exist in my bone marrow. On Monday they will take blood samples to perform a baseline for the mixed chimerism tests, and also check for any leukaemic cells. They then do another set of tests in 3 months time and compare to the baseline. At that time I will know more about the efficacy of the transplant. It is hoped that the graft-versus-leukaemia effect will have killed most if not all of my stem cells ... if there are too many of my cells left there are some remedial actions that can be taken, for example injecting me with some mature donor lymphocytes (white cells).
A few other things ...
Because my immune system is deemed to be a bit stronger, I no longer get exclusive use of transport to take me to and from the clinic; I have to share with other patients living nearby. When the clinic switches to Thursday bi-weekly (in October) I will have to drive myself.
Yesterday we visited Rose's parents in Shropshire, and I drove all the way home (2 3/4 hours). When we went on car journeys in the past, we had to make "comfort" breaks for Rose; now it is I who need them more due to my continued intake of 3 litres!
This week I managed to play 18 holes of golf from the tees, walking. I only scored 20 Stableford points, but it is an achievement I am proud of.
It is great to hear that things are so positive.
ReplyDelete