This week has been better than last week thank goodness. The steroids have definitely been helping to some extent. Energy level and appetite have both improved. In the last two days my weight has slowly crept up a little but it is still about 1.5kg down compared with two weeks ago.
In clinic on Thursday Karine and I saw one of the registrars who thinks the bowel problem is probably due to GvHD. He said that it would need a sigmoidoscopy with biopsies to confirm it and would discuss this at the post clinic debrief with the consultants. The week before Prof seemed to be saying that I would need a sigmoidoscopy etc if the treatment didn't work which I took to mean I wouldn't need one if the symptoms improved. We'll see. Perhaps I got the wrong end of the stick!
The treatment has been left unchanged. Someone would have called after the debrief if there was to be a change. Due back in clinic next Thursday as usual.
The other news from clinic is that the platelets have picked up over the past two weeks. Also haemoglobin is slowly slowly increasing. It was 111g/L (11.1 in old money!) which is the highest it has been since I was diagnosed. The underlying trend is one of a gradual increase which I see as being really good news indeed. The graft has really got its feet under the table and is getting down to some serious work. I hope I'm not reading too much into this. If all goes well then in several months time I will no longer be anaemic.
I'm very lucky that my sister and I are the same blood group. I recently read of another patient who, having had a sibling donor graft but with a different blood group, is needing regular blood transfusions every few weeks whilst waiting for the graft to replace all the 'old' blood. I hadn't realised how lucky I was that Lucy and I are the same blood group, if anyone with leukaemia can be said to be 'lucky'.
I went back to rehab this week and enjoyed the exercise and talking with people who are all going through the same ups and downs.
On Friday Karine and I went to Rufford Abbey and walked around the park before having lunch in the restaurant. It was a beautiful warm autumn day. We walked round the lake and later on through the gardens. The trees were especially lovely although I suspect they will be even better in a week. There were lots of birds on the lake including some large ducks with very dark iridescent green feathers, Cayuga ducks we discovered later. It was marvellous just to get out and do something together.
Getting back to normal life is a very slow business and it occurs in stops and starts but it is progress.
* Donovan "Fairytale" final track
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