Medical Jargon and a bit of good news

I realise I haven’t explained my treatment plan on this, thats mainly because I don’t know because it can change from day to day depending on whether I get infections etc. But I think I have some gist of it now so I’ll give it a whirl.

I have traits of the 2 types of Acute Leukaemia- ALL and AML. They had to start my chemo straight away because obviously Leukaemia is cancer in the blood. The type of chemo they give is one of the most extreme for the body to handle but the aim is to give it fast and a lot of it so that they push it in to remission as quickly as possible. So that is what has been happening for the last month and a bit.
My Chemo lasts 5 days and for round 1 it was 3 types of chemo a day so by day 5 I will have had 15 bags of chemo. Their aim is to push it into remission after the 1st cycle. It means I was hooked up to the tubes for most of the time that week but they free you so that you can have a shower and I always try to get dressed too.

My 2nd round of chemo which I just started on Wednesday is similar. They have dropped one of the chemos so I am only having 2 bags every day for 5 days. This is because the initial results of the bone marrow show that I am in remission!!

Because I have a combination of the 2 types of leukaemia it means that my whole bone marrow doesn’t work (the stuff that makes the blood!) This means my leukaemia would come back and I would need regular treatment for the rest of my life if I don’t have a bone marrow transplant. They told me early on that I would need one of these and they began to test my sister Clare to see if she is a match. There was a 1 in 4 chance that she was so we were told not to get out hopes up. If it turned out she wasn’t they said I would go on a transplant list. But beyond all belief we were told the other day that Clare is a match.

This means that she will have a small operation to remove some bone marrow and it will be given to me the same day. Its all very complicated and it is a long road ahead but we are delighted that we got some good news, in fact all of us had a bit of a cry because even a bit of good news like, I don’t have to wear a mask in the ward at the moment is great, so you can imagine when we heard that!

I will have to have more chemo and radiation before any of this happens and all I can really do is take one day at a time, otherwise things get so overwhelming. That’s another thing I loved about being home, taking one day at a time. Usually the days just role into each other when your out there working but when I was out I had to make use of every single day because I knew I was only out for such a short time. I hope that’s something I’m learning- not to waste time doing nothing for the sake of it.

Obviously we are all anxious about the procedure Clare has to have because we haven’t really heard much about it yet but as time goes on we will know all the in’s and out’s and all the staff here are so delighted she’s a match. They said often someone will have 6 or 7 siblings and not one is a match so it really is brilliant news. She will needed to be tested for a clean bill of health obviously before any final decisions are made but obviously if she can give me the transplant I will never be able to repay her, so I will just have to do the most incredible speech at the wedding, be the best chief bridesmaid I can be and generally be her slave forever, and that is more than ok with me, right Zumo?

So there may be a chance that all three of us will be in hospital at the one time because my mom is waiting on her date to start radiotherapy she wont have to stay but still you can get very tired from that treatment- it’ll be all down to the aunt’s and Adam and Stephen to visit us three! Can you believe it?

I also have to add that I forgot to mention my family did a big meaty BBQ for me one of the days I was home last week and Adam made his favourite chicken wings, they were his best ones so far, elephant and castle style, yum yum! And Stephen bought me a mountain of Capri Sonne which was well appreciated instead of sterilised water/orange mi wadi!

So hopefully that can give you guys some insight into my treatment plan. It is quite complicated and the plan changes from day to day but it’s all to help me kick this things ass.

Lots of love,
M