Leggy Blonde?

I wanted to post a picture of myself for a couple of reasons. I shall speak of these after the picture.

The first reason was there are a number of people who follow this blog who saw me perhaps 2-3 months ago when I was completely bald, a bit on the pale side and half a stone lighter. So I thought before that happens again I should show how much things have changed in the intervening months, how quickly the body recovers. Hair back, beard back, eyebrows fully restored to their former bushy glory plus I've surpassed my pre-auto transplant weight. It is funny that in this calorie-counting world we live in a transplant ward is probably one of the few places in the world where 'I've put on half a stone' is met with 'Excellent', and telling your consultant 'I'm eating as much as I can', is praised as a 'really good idea'. So refreshing.

The other reason was that I had to shave my head again as my new hair growth was starting to resemble the soft, springy side of velcro. Growing in really thick tight curls, very wiry. And as I have to moisturise my head to avoid dry skin it had to go. I had read that having an allo transplant can change the colour of your hair as it affects the DNA in the body. So with this being a German lady, and I hope I'm not being too racially stereo typical here, I could become blonde. So I thought I had better document my, potentially, last dark days.

However on a bit of further reading I have found out some interesting stuff. When I receive the donor cells they should replace my bone marrow and start to produce all my blood components. If some of my bone marrow is left the new blood cells may become some mix of mine and her DNA, or her cells may take over and my blood may be completely my donors. But, this DNA change does not permeate tissue and other cells in the body, meaning if I were to be DNA tested using a skin sample the test result would be different to the result of a blood DNA test! This would make me a chimera, i.e. someone with more than one set of DNA. Chimera Nash. But my hair colour won't change, I won't get a bigger beard and my beer drinking capacity will remain woefully inadequate for a man of my size.

Managed to get off the hospital site today, even drove the car, out to a NT property with Jo. Had a walk round some lovely herbaceous borders (herbaceous: a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level), then went for Sunday lunch. Only to find the Sunday lunch on offer was very bad value for money at £9 for what appeared to be one slice of organic meat and only a smattering of locally grown vegetables. So we had curry at Waitrose for a fiver, lovely.

Have my dose of Melphalan tomorrow (280mg compared with 430mg I had for my auto transplant so hopefully side effects will be a bit reduced), but because it is such a nasty drug (is related in some way to mustard gas I understand) I have to be on saline drips for 24 hours simply to keep my kidneys well flushed to minimise damage to them. So the next week or so is likely to be similar to the first week of my auto: going off food, sore throat and gut troubles (that is all I'll say). An uncomfortable week, but nothing that can't be tolerated, and I've just got the box set of Lead Balloon so that's me entertained at least.