Thursday is clinic day. Last week my steroids were reduced slightly and a couple of days later the GvHD of the colon started to wake up. Nothing like as badly as back in September and October but nevertheless a warning that it had been dormant rather than cured. This week we saw Prof and he has doubled the Ciclosporin to try and clobber it - that's a rather technical clinical term by the way!
The next couple of weeks will be quite busy medically. On Monday there is a pre-op check for the heart trouble followed by a bone marrow aspirate - it is six months since the transplant and I have an aspirate every three months for the first year as part of the Figaro trial of a new treatment regime for Stem Cell Transplant Conditioning chemotherapy . This will be the sixth aspirate - I think! Not sure what happens after the twelve month one.
We should get the main preliminary results of the aspirate at the Thursday haematology clinic on the 21st. Then a week on Monday, February 1st, there is the angiogram and hopefully they will be able to fix whatever they find. In the meantime the GvHD should be calming down. It's all go!
We've been to rehab the last two weeks, me to do a little exercise and Karine to keep an eye on me! The anti-angina medication seem to be working so I'm able to exercise gently which is great. After the angiogram I should be able to ditch some of this medication.
We've had a visit from some friends from York last week and had an afternoon catching up and putting the world to rights! Andy had trained in our practice just after I had joined in the mid 1980s and we have been caravanning in Yorkshire several times over the intervening years. They ended up staying longer than intended and had supper with us before heading back to York, all in all a lovely afternoon and evening.
Later in the week we did a short walk with another retired doctor friend, Sue, walking from Bestwood village from the old mine-head winding house into Bestwood woods and back and she treated us to lunch afterwards.
The minute the sun shines Karine suggests a gentle trot around the block and with the current tablet regime I am able to manage this even when the temperature is close to zero. I am looking forward to having the heart problem fixed and being to improve my physical fitness. Here's hoping! Roll on the next two weeks.
* Pink Floyd - "The Division Bell" - track 11
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