One drawback of this Chemo treatment was cost, the NHS will only allow Venetoclax to be used free for a first transplant with any further treatments to be paid for and it not a small amount (details can be found in the NICE guidelines for medicine costs) there will also be a mark up by the Hospital for their own costs. Anyway treatment was started on 18th November and during this time a search was made for another suitable Donor using the world wide register. I am actually a Hub Volunteer for DKMS in the Uk which is a charity spreading the word about stem cell donations and swabbing and recruiting people to join the register, it is the largest organisation contributing to the world register. In late December a perfect match donor was found (a Czech female) and so we could proceed further towards the transplant. A further course of Chemo was started on 14th January 2026 but this time with only 14 days of the Venetoclax instead of 28 as the signs were the AML was becoming under control again, indeed this was proved by another Biopsy in early March. It was then decided to go for a Transplant in early April with admittance last week of March for pre transplant conditioning, all the forms were signed and the risks and possible outcomes of the procedure explained once again, finally a date was set for 25th March for admission.
To be continued.
