I got the fever

After days of threatening to do so my temperature finally spiked above 38 last night and I am now on anti-biotics for three days to bring this under control. I had to provide all manner of bodily fluids for testing but apparently sometimes there isn't a reason for spiking it seems to be something that just goes with the territory of being neutropenic. The nurses told me they actually worry more if you don't spike as this means you'll probably do it within days of going home. I would not have gone home before the weekend anyway so this is a good a time as any for me to do it. I don't feel particularly ill and I haven't had any shakes, but it has absolutely wiped me out. This is the first day I have not taken my dressing gown off, and I spent most of the morning just snoozing, I have just had my lunch and I think I will return to snoozing right after this.

The worst thing about it was I spiked at about 19:00 last night. I then had bloods taken, swab taken for MRSA and full examination by a doctor, and they told me they needed to change the dressing on my line. So I said can I have a shower before you do that? They said ok, so I did. Then after my shower I covered myself in the very oily ointment that I have to for the dry skin I suffered after my auto and then got into my pyjamas. At which point the male nurse came and said 'we've got to go for a trip', 'to where?' I asked. 'We've got to go to A&E to have an X-ray', 'couldn't this have been done before I covered myself in grease and got into my pyjamas?' I asked, making it clear I wasn't blaming him. But the doctor had only just booked it so we had to go. The nurse left the room so I said 'I do not need a wheelchair', to which he replied 'you've got to go in a wheelchair I've already got it here look'. So at half nine last night I was completely unnecessarily wheeled down to A&E in my pyjamas, with my face and head glistening like a well polished car bonnet.

The good news is my neutrophils which were 0.08 on Wednesday, were 0.19 on Tuesday and 0.45 today! I think I can round that up, it's 0.5 to 1dp, no-one ever says 'nought point five zero' (that is the consultant in me talking) so I consider that today as of lunchtime I am no longer a neutropene! And I have been given permission to see my kids on the landing outside the ward tomorrow when Jo comes, which is very exciting. It won't be for long, but then it also won't be long before I get out with neutrophils rising at this rate.

The other thing I've had time to do is write my thank you letter to my donor, apparently Anthony Nolan will translate it into German before sending it on; they really do provide an amazing all round service to the transplant process. I will be signing up to give a monthly donation very shortly. Anyway just in case this blog ever reaches any further than all you good people that know me and/or have already signed up to be donors, I am sharing the content of this letter just in case it helps convince someone that being a donor is something very, very worthwhile.

I am writing to you as two weeks ago I received two bags of stem cells which you had donated for me, and I wanted to thank you and let you know what a wonderful thing you have done.
I am a 33 year old man, married with two young children both under 5. A year and a half ago I would have considered myself fit and healthy. So when I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma (a rare blood cancer with a life expectancy of three to five years with conventional treatments) following the collapse of one of the verterbrae in my neck, this came as a great shock and caused us much grief.
This was not made any better when my disease did not respond particularly well to first then second line treatments and I was found to have a tissue type which showed up no matches on the worldwide donor register at the time. At one point we were told we might never find a donor, it was quite a bleak outlook. Then you came along.
Currently the only way Myeloma can be cured is by having a donor bone marrow transplant and your stem cells are, as I write, finding their way into my bones to ,hopefully, produce blood and bone marrow which is Myeloma free.
You have given me the chance to get my life back, the chance to see my kids grow up and grow old with my wife. Things that six months ago were looking quite unlikely for me.
It is not possible to put a value on your kindness and I don't think it is possible to thank you enough - although I hope this letter goes some way to showing how much it means to me.
I have also been through the process of peripheral stem cell extraction and I know it is no small act.
So thank you again for what you have given me.

I'm going for a snooze.