So transplant day arrived! Somewhat of an anti-climax given that the procedure is in effect merely a mega blood transfusion. I still wonder how they can squeeze an additional pint of blood into a child’s body, albeit Fabian looked very rosy-cheeked afterward, whereas poor Cassia looks very peaky. She though, was well enough to come home today, armed with 3 months supply of iron supplement. At last then, with the start of a brand new immune system, we can say for certainty our 6 year battle against leukaemia has turned the corner and that in the great words of Churchill spoken in 1942, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning” (pardon the melodramatic). The key weapon Fabian now has is the Graft vs Leukaemia effect (GvL) meaning that his new lymphocytes are locked and loaded, set to attack and destroy any remaining leukaemic cells. Of course, there is a long uncertain road ahead and first to face will be the small matter of engraftment. We need the new stem cells to engraft in Fabian and the first sign of this will be an increase in his WBC count. The magic number 0.5 will indicate this has happened so everyone repeat after me; ‘Grow cells grow’. I know this works because a 4 year old leukaemia child in America tried this on followers of his blog and he raced to engraftment. Tonight the room is properly sealed up to ward off infection and Lydia will hunker down with Fabian, regularly peered at by staff through the door slats. More news anon.
brilliant job Casia and Fabian…
well done..
Hi you wonderful guys! (Sorry for not replying sooner, have had no internet or email due to Steve getting a new PC up and running (yay!) , and then trying to figure out why the wireless wouldn’t work downstairs on the old laptop (i.e. I had nothing to use). Anyway, glad to hear things now start to go in the direction of up! Hope you are feeling ok Fabian, and hope Cassia is now starting to feel better. Well done both of you. Gold stars all round.
Darrell, you joke about hair and makeup, but when I had my op last year, I well remember a young woman coming in a few days after me, wanting – quite seriously – to know whether it was ok to wear makeup for her operation! She was quite disappointed to know she was not even allowed a little bit of lipstick. The whole episode was completely bizarre. (She also told me how much she had spent on a CK dressing gown, just to come into hospital…) Clearly not a lot of sense there!
Is that combat gear you’re wearing in the photo Fabian? Looks cool, whatever it is. I’ve just remembered, there is some fairytale about a magic cooking pot, where you had to say ‘cook, little pot, cook’ and it would do what you wanted. (of course, one day they couldn’t stop it and there was porridge everywhere, all over the house, in the street, etc!) So anyway, we can say ‘grow, little cells, grow!’. Lots of love and prayers for you Fabian.
xx