In and Out

Julia took me in to the Marsden this morning at 11.30 as scheduled.  I checked in to my room and then had my first dose of chemo administered through the Hickman line.  63mg of fludarabine, to be precise.  All went smoothly, though I felt a little light-headed and slightly disconnected from Reality for a while (so what else is new?).


In and Out in quick succession

And then they let me out again!
Hooray!
So I was home in time to watch the rugby before having a few zzzz's this afternoon.

Very civilized.

And we should be able to perform the same routine tomorrow, so my proper incarceration won't start till Monday.
That's the plan anyway.

The chemo is of course essentially Poison.

Targeted poison, but still poison.
The idea is to reduce my immune system to rubble with three days of fludarabine, then give it a final nuking with a single burst of radiotherapy on Wednesday, immediately before the Transplant.
That clears the battleground for the new troops to move in, i.e. the new blood stem cells from the transplant donor.

During this initial bombardment of my old (and malfunctioning) immune system, I am also being given lots of prophylactic medicines to prevent all sorts of likely infections taking unwelcome advantage of the lack of a resident defence force before the new one moves in.  That's the Theory.  Now for the Practice...