The Yellow Brick Road to TransplantLand

Bugger me – I think there is the shimmering of a plan in sight – finally.

Only 9 months into chemo and at last some potential light (if you can call it that!) at the end of what's been a shitter of a 2016 endless tunnel.

It's all changed yet again as – HURRAH BLOODY HURRAH – I am currently (never a good idea to think what's true one week, will still be true the following week though) IN REMISSION!!!!

It seems that the dream combo of Dara the big drug and Velcade the small drug (well, only in terms of how long they take to administer, it's funny how you end up seeing them that way) have finally knocked my Paraprotein down to 'undetectable' – and Prof is suddenly sailing like billy-o towards my transplant.

And it now seems to be that:

• He does want me to harvest my current stem cells, rather than using my 8 year old frozen ones (I always said, chilled was better than frozen)
• Which is good news as intuitively the fresh ones will be 'better' – fewer myeloma cells and no 8-years-in-a-freezer dubious niff to them
• But also slightly bad news as a stem cell harvest is a 2 week ball ache – 4 days of GCSF injections to make me hyper-produce stem cells (remember, the process that makes your fingers feel like giant fizzing sausages, and if these weren't then taken back out of me I would actually explode). Followed by 3-4 long days of about 4-5 hours each day attached to a mega harvesting machine that takes blood out of one arm, through a magic machine, then whacks it back in again. All the while I will be desperate for a wee… inevitably. But hopefully this will gather enough cells for definitely the upcoming transplant, and enough for one more with luck, to keep in the freezer bank for another day/year.
• And depending on timings, my Stem Cell Transplant would then be mid/late Jan 2017. Not exactly something I'm looking forward to, but it is the start of the main 'thing' that might help me get my life back, like I did after my first transplant. Please, please, please let this one magically do the same thing.
• Already the phone is ringing with the hideously long list of things that need doing pre-transplant. I am already booked in for a MUGA GFR test – heart and kidneys I think – which seems to take about 5 hours and involve injections and a lot of lying down quietly (not my forte!). Prof is mumbling apologetically about needing to do a Bone Marrow Biopsy – under sedation this time as I have avoided this like the bloody plague since my first one where some sadistic sod literally used a corkscrew to extract bone marrow from within my spine, while I screamed the hospital down and bit the nurse. And a pile of other little medical joys, such as PET CTs and god knows what else – it's a laugh and a half, this bloody cancer gig.

But at least we seem to be underway, and I am desperately hoping the SCT will be the start of something better than the last 2 years have been.

And Jan 2017 will be precisely 8 years since my first SCT – so I am already inordinately grateful that I am 

a) still here

b) overall, reasonably healthy, compared to many

c) lucky that I have had minimal side effects from the many months of chemo (besides falling asleep at 9pm most nights, sorry to everyone whose sofas or theatre seats I have dozed off on!)

d) in with a chance of a future – unlike may of my less fortunate myeloma chums

Will keep you updated – keep those fingers crossed for a lasting remission – cheers S x