19.5.16

Having read a blog of a fellow lymph-homie, i felt the need to pull my finger out and write something. He hadn't written his blog for a while after his allogeneic stem cell transplant (using a donors cells, his sisters to be precise, rather than your own) as there was nothing to report. A check up, including PET scan showed enlarged glands!!!! Every lymphoma sufferers nightmare. Then begins the anxiety of bloods and the wait for results. Luckily his was a false alarm, but the nightmare of 'what if' is hair raising (if you still have some), blood curdling (literally), spine chilling and nerve racking.
So what about me then....
I have been waiting patiently for my date to go in for my autologous stem cell transplant (using my own cells). Its a feeling of impending doom, but equally its a life saver and its something that needs to be done, the sooner the better so i can start to recover, and so i don't have it hanging over my head like a deadly night shade type of mistletoe, waiting to administer the kiss of death!
I had a telephone call from Sammy the nurse specialist. I say a call, it was a voicemail cos i was out living it up at Lyns house with a cup of tea and a Belgian bun!
'Yes ill stop for another cuppa' i said, only to miss the call I've been waiting for for over 2 weeks or more.
The next morning i rang, 8.30, 9, 9.30 and eventually she got back to me at 10.
'You're next admission is on June 1st.'
Well i was expecting 23rd May.
'We hadn't factored in the rest you needed after radiotherapy,' she said.
I told her the radiographer had told me i needed 2 weeks off and that ends on the 23rd.
'Yeah, i can't get you in till june 1st!'
So nothing to do with the rest I needed.
It would have been so much better if she'd just said, 'thats the first date we can get you in,' I would have accepted it.
So, June 1st is B day. The first drug of my lifesaving cocktail BEAM. Usually its the initials of the drugs, the B is the initial for BicNU, the trade name. Its friends know it by the name Carmustine. As i did before, i would like to give my drugs a nicer name.
Carmustine will now be know as Karma Sutra!
Etoposide as Top of the morning, said with an Irish accent.
Cytarabine (AraC) as Itty bitty cat in a bin (Chris said to call it Sit on my Face!)
And Melphalan (the evilest drug that ever walked this earth) as Mango Flan.
Good. Thats that sorted then!