Week 18 – Friday 5th Jan. Day 2 PT

Day 2 Post Transplant (PT) was an interesting one.  In the main I have felt OK although today I was very tired and managed two sleeps – one before lunch and another post lunch (for about 2 hours).

It is a strange feeling as at the moment I am feeling reasonably well but the doctors keep telling me I will ‘fall off the cliff’ in a few days.  I have made the comparison with being in jail as time is ticking by slowly and I don’t have much freedom – other than a few laps around the ward and then back on the treadmill again!

However the care, compassion and empathy by the nursing staff certainly leaves you with no doubt that you are in the right place – jail would be a distant second!

To keep myself engaged I have broken my daily routine up into 30 min slots with time for reading, exercise, knitting, listening to the radio and podcasts, sleeping and eating.  On top of that I am very pleased that my family can still come and visit, usually for a few hours in the morning and then again in the afternoon.  We tend not to do much, other than maybe a game of cards or ‘Bananagrams’ but just sitting around together is sufficient.

Today I was lucky to receive some goodies in the mail, including a box of lovely Belgium chocolates from our Belgium friends Nadine and Gino Bockaert.  I also received a 100 pound cheque from English friend Richard Buer, having made a late wager on the current Test series.  I think Richard still has two or three of my cheques pinned to his toilet door back in England from previous Aussie failures.

My neighbour Tyrone, the 18yr old with AML is due to be discharged in the next day or so.  Tyrone was on a similar timetable to myself but due to my lung infection/kidney problems my treatment was postponed and his went ahead prior to Christmas,  He has spent two weeks on the IV nutrition drip with neutrophils of 0.0 but at least they have started to climb again – something for me to look forward to.

More news tomorrow.