Having had a rough few days sitting on the loo half the time the steroids seem to be starting to work. Yesterday was a little better and today better still.
We went to the Day Case Unit this morning and saw the Bone Marrow Transplant nurse Lynne. My blood count is OK and the tests from the end of last week, liver and kidneys, are reasonable. I don't have C Difficile (a v nasty infection of the bowel) so the antibiotic has been stopped. Lynne had a word with Prof Russell and my Ciclosporin has been reduced from 50mg twice daily to 30mg twice daily. This means that I'm back on track to come off this by the end of the month all being well. For the moment I stay on the steroids. It seems this may be a touch of GvHD of the bowel. We'll see what Prof Russell thinks when we go back to clinic in three days time.
A small dose of GvHD is not a completely bad thing. It means that some of the cells in my new bone marrow (T Lymphocytes) are attacking me. Reducing the immunosuppression (Ciclosporin) can precipitate this kind of reaction. The steroids damp this down. The good thing is the T cells also recognise any residual Leukaemia cells and attack them. The really important thing here is that having some GvHD is associated with a lower relapse rate so Prof's opinion as to what is going on is important! Nevertheless GvHD definitely isn't fun.
My energy level has risen a little so I'm doing a little more exercise having not done so much in the past week or so. I should be well enough to go back to rehab on Thursday. Unfortunately my weight has been falling like a stone, down 1.5kg in the last ten days. Hopefully it will start to increase in the coming week(s).
* Jethro Tull - "Heavy Horses" track 10
No comments:
Post a Comment