Flatline

Today I finally flatlined in terms of neutrophils, I now have 0 white blood cells and 0 neutrophils. It is now just a period of waiting for my new stem cells to start making my blood and hopefully in that time I don't catch any bugs as this results in days on anti-biotic drips which is just a pain more than anything else. So I am no longer making blood, my platelets have plummeted too. The only blood count not coming down in the red blood count, but then red blood cells apparently have a life cycle of 120 days so do take longer to decline.

Bizarrely, I think anyway, I'm still feeling fine. I have no gut issues, no mouth problems and I've taken to doing 5 mile sessions on the exercise bike to expend some energy stored up from doing nothing all day. This has made me feel even better and less lethargic than I was a few days ago. I would be seriously worried that this treatment wasn't working if it wasn't for the fact that I have no blood cells!

Currently the doctor doing the rounds on the ward is a lady from Barcelona who is head of the European Transplant Board. I was told if I have any questions about current research she is the lady to speak to. So today I asked about my chances of being cured, given that the figures we were given was based on research started in the mid 90's. Her answer was that there is currently lots of research going on into comparing the outcomes of auto-auto and auto-allo tandem transplants (I am having an auto-allo tandem) and her opinion is that for me, being young (relative to most of the codgers with Myeloma) and having had a strain of the disease that was proving difficult to control, an auto-allo holds the best chance of a cure and that the chances of being cured is 40-50%. This is what we told way, way back when we first discussed allo transplants with my consultant. I then asked what about the things you can do now post-transplant that would not have been available 10 years ago, such as donor lymphocyte infusions, and she said taking into account DLIs you could increase your chance of being cured by 10%. Which is great, this makes it more of a chance of being cured than not, which I'll take quite happily.