Slooow Improvement

A week since my last proper update, for which my apologies, but All is Well. Nothing much to report, I'm glad to say, other than a sloooow but steady improvement on most fronts.

I'm gradually feeling a little better each day and some of the peripheral medical issues are at last proving responsive to treatment. These include sore mouth and throat, and smarting eyes, none of which is particularly peripheral as far as I'm concerned, because they can make life quite uncomfortable, but they are indicators of general health, rather than essential for my overall recovery. And they're all better than they were a week ago.

Gradually too the Cocktail of Drugs is being reduced, which is a good sign as my body once again takes some responsibility for itself. About time too... Down to 13/14 doses of various delights a day, as opposed to almost 40 at its peak! The consultant microbiologist said that he could definitely see clinical improvement, so I'm off all antibiotics now except penicillin (and crossed fingers too of course, though that may not officially count as an antibiotic). Liver results are still a bit up and down, but nothing to cause alarm apparently; just a sign that the Graft versus Host Disease (GvHD) is still active, a hangover from the transplant. So although the transplant was a success in eradicating all trace of the leukaemia,it has left me with a legacy from which most of my current issues stem. But we may be winning.

Slowly.

I still sleep a great deal, and although hopefully that's restorative, it's also getting a bit disruptive because my body clock's getting further and further out of kilter, meaning that I often don't get to sleep till the early hours of the morning and then don't wake up till the afternoon.

Last night, for example, I turned the light out at 1 am, then tossed and turned a bit (always careful not to pull my feeding tube out, which operates overnight!) and slept through till 2 pm, when Julia woke me or I'd have gone on for ever. So still a way to go, but so far so good, and tomorrow (Fri 1st June) I shall have been out of hospital for 3 weeks since the latest discharge (from hospital, that is, as opposed to any other sort).

Managed a trip to the Barnes Wetland Centre yesterday where poor Julia got rather hot pushing her quite comfortable husband round in a wheelchair. Still too Feak and Weeble to walk very far unfortunately, but I am practising... Not much about in the way of avian life on the water, but it was a beautiful day and we did get a very clear

sighting of a handsome Great Spotted Woodpecker flitting up and down a line of fence posts, picking tasty morsels out of the cracks in each one.