Hi All, Hope you’ll forgive me, I need to get the gist of this down for future reference… Well in the last blog, I was just going back in for ‘observation’ whilst neutropenic. Straightforward really - a few antibiotics for an unknown infection and my first blood transfusion because haemoglobin was low one day - if anyone knows any B positive types get them to drop a pint or two off in the morning. By the way, I’ve just found out that the Japanese predict personality, romantic compatibility etc like the west uses astrology. So if you want some Sunday Silliness and froth… (usual small-print guff about accepting no liability for anything resulting from aforementioned silliness clause here). After 9 nights in, my blood had finally risen and I was sent up to The Freeman, Newcastle for my stem cell harvest. Staff were lovely and managed to get the needles into my protesting veins without too much bother. I’d had 5 days of gcsf injections to stimulate the little bu**ers into production. They obviously worked because the doc explained that if they get a score of 60 (didn’t ask for any more detail than that, sorry) they’re ‘ecstatic’ mine was 300+ so that was a welcome boost. It also meant that they were only going to hook me up to the machine for half the time. Process was very straightforward. Was warned that you sometimes get tingling sensations or a feeling of vibrating as though you were standing next to a washing machine on high spin mode - if this happens tell them, it’s you not the equipment. They give you calcium tablets to suck. It’s to do with the high levels of anticoagulant they put in to to help things along (very scientific I know J ). The procedure is described here
http://www.nhlcyberfamily.org/treatments/collection.htm#details
Then it was a taxi home! I was shattered and in need of my own bed by now so went to sleep for a while. I woke up to see a wide-eyed driver looking nervously around him. His trusty satnav had sent him on the most ‘scenic’ route it could find and we were in the middle of the moors. No street lights. No traffic. The rabbits and birds are playing chicken run across the road. It’s getting dark. He’s lost his mobile signal. The fog is descending - it looks like something out of Lord Of The Rings. I know I shouldn’t laugh but he looked so scared at being In The Countryside anyway he found it funny himself as we cracked jokes about the horrors - got home eventually and invited him in for a drink but he politely declined and legged it - he went home the quick way. A few days at home. Soo Good. Love and Good things Karen xx
