I posted
my story a few months ago but haven't had a chance to update much since then, what with juggling hospital visits, work, and my social life...
But my bone marrow transplant admission date is rapidly approaching, and this seems an appropriate place to keep a running saga as it goes along. I had my pre-transplant clinic appointment yesterday, so I know a lot more specifics than I did previously, too.
2 June - admission to Derek Mitchell Unit (dedicated BMT ward) at King's College Hospital, London, UK, under the watchful eye of Prof Marsh and Prof Mufti
3 June - chemo for "mini transplant" starts. I'm getting
Fludarabine,
Busulfan, and a very new one,
Campath, that attaches antigens onto the surface of the donor's T-cells or something like that. Apparently it's fresh out of trials...
11 June - stem cells from an unrelated matched donor
It's nice knowing I'm in
the best place in the UK for BMTs, but at the same time, the statistics are a bit frightening because they're all for BMTs as a whole, and I feel like I should be above the odds since a) I've not got cancer nor have I already been weakened by years of chemo and b) I'm young and (at least before I got sick) very fit and healthy. But since there's very few cases of Aplastic Anaemia that get BMTs, it's almost as though the Profs are developing my course of therapy as they go along and what the research would suggest is best, too.
The only thing left for me to do is get my Hickman line inserted on Thursday (May 28). Oh, and pack up lots of activities to last me 6 weeks!
Anyone have any experience, either at King's or with the same chemo drugs, or have any advice on what to pack? I'm not quite sure how I'll feel, and there's no amount of reading that can predict it either!