Stem cell transplant March/April 2015

It is now been more than a year since my diagnosis with myeloma.

I have completed two long phases of chemotherapy. I then received further high dose chemotherapy a few weeks ago called ‘priming’ in preparation for the stem cell harvesting, and that has now finally resulted in the loss of my hair!

Stem cell harvesting

My stem cell harvesting is complete and went well as they collected enough cells for at least two transplants. My plumbing installation (Hickman/Central line) is now installed and I am now finally ready to progress to the main event in my treatment.

Once I return back home, it will be several months before I am back to health and can hopefully be classified as being in ‘remission’. We hope that this remission period will last for many years!

I am scheduled to be admitted to Saint James’s Hospital in Leeds on Tuesday 24th March. There I shall undergo high dose chemotherapy with a drug called Melphalan. This will completely kill off all of the myeloma cells in my bone marrow and blood stream. So as well as making me very sick for a while, unfortunately this will also destroy much of my good bone marrow, as well as my immune system. So, then I will receive a stem cell transplant. The stem cells are my own stem cells that were harvested a couple of weeks ago. It will take some time for these stem cells to grow and develop into healthy bone marrow, and for my immune system to recover. Therefore I will be staying in a special isolation ward at Saint James’s hospital for 3 to 4 weeks.

We’d like to thank our customers for the kind thoughts and words that have supported us through this process so far, and ask for your understanding if there are delays in responses over the coming weeks and months.