As ever, started off with a lot of random chat – this time about what breed Scrumpy is and how old, then the names he has given his pets in the past, then a bit about Mojo and asking after Hawksey. And eventually, he got down to business.<\/p>\n
Had a chat about me potentially harvesting a fresh batch of stem cells, in case I need to have a third transplant at some point in the future.<\/p>\n
Absolutely not now – everything remains remarkably okay – but given that the stem cells I have in some mysterious deep freezer are well over 10 years old now, and were taken when my bloods were less good than they are now, its something we've tossed back and forward a few times over the past 2 years.<\/p>\n
Given COVID, and my non urgent need for the stem cells, we've been holding off, as its not right to put the hospitals under any more pressure when there's so much catching up on health stuff to do.<\/p>\n
But, inevitably, at some point I'll have to do it. Not a particularly nice prospect as the pre-drugs are not great (their job is to over-stimulate stem cell production, makes you feel oddly 'full' of excess cells, puffy fizzy fingers etc as a response to several days of H injecting me etc).<\/p>\n
And then probably 4 days on the bounce of being strapped to the magic machine that removes your blood, spins off the precious stem cells, and then recirculates the rest back into your system. All in the hope of generating 'enough' to use the cells for a future transplant. And all the while with me unable to drink as it takes about 7 hours I seem to remember and there's no nipping to the loo when you're on that monster machine.<\/p>\n
I still think about how horrendous both the transplants were, especially the second one, which took me so much longer to recover from. 9 months I reckon, till I was pretty much 'me' again, with my hair gradually catching up on the game. So its not really a process I'm that keen to get underway, even if it is in a 'just in case' scenario at the moment. But – would I rather have some fresh stem cells or some deep frozen ancient crusty ones – assuming some bugger knows where they even are! Yes, I guess so. Three years ago I had BUPA on the phone moaning that they weren't willing to store them beyond the ten year mark, so I have no idea if they just decided to get on with it, or had them defrosted and disposed of…<\/p>\n
Anyway – I'm not pushing him to do it, will wait and see when they have more idea of where – possibly Kings – and when. Urgh.<\/p>\n
x<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As ever, started off with a lot of random chat – this time about what breed Scrumpy is and how old, then the names he has given his pets in the past, then a bit about Mojo and asking after Hawksey. And eventually, he got down to business. Had a chat about me potentially harvesting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n