I spent a week in hospital in Cardiff basically getting all the official stuff done and getting hydrated to dilute the still ridiculous level of white blood cells in my blood. After putting my best swimmers under ice I was able to start on a course of hydroxyurea which would bring my white blood cell levels back to normal. Over the coming weeks the dose of it would have to be adjusted regularly until it was controlling the proliferation of white cells that is indicative of my type of leukaemia.
The interesting thing about hydroxyurea is the pharmacology of it. When looking at drugs you don't just need to know what the drug does to the body but also what the body does to the drug. The human body metabolises drugs into more water soluble forms so they can be excreted from the body easily. Now when this happens with hydroxyurea it gets metabolised into uric acid, which unfortunately collects in the joints of the body in the condition known as gout. So because I was taking one drug I had to take another (allopurinol since you ask) to prevent me getting gout.
It sounds like such an olde worlde condition, and it does sound better when prefixed with the (the gout just sounds funny), but it can be incredibly painful as it consists of crystals of uric acid collecting in your joints, especially the peripheral ones like the big toe.
Another thing occurred to me about that as uric acid is what bird shit consists of, what with birds not having separate excretion for solids and liquids and having a middle ground of uric acid compared to our urine. Sometimes I wish I didn't know things.
On getting out my friend Yvonne came to stay for the weekend and it was quite wonderful having her around. We didn't do much of anything except a bit of sightseeing and general mincing around but it was a welcome relief to do something vaguely normal.
I knew in these weeks after that I had decisions to make, the first of which was actually quite easy. I knew I would have to give up my studies as there was no way I could carry on with it then and it couldn't be held open for me as it was industrially funded and needed to be ongoing. What was more of a wrench though was knowing that I would have to move home. I had thoroughly enjoyed living down there and it would be very sad for me to leave but I knew that whatever treatment I was to have I would need to be at home because anything else would be terribly unfair on the family. I just had to remind myself that it was only going to be a temporary move home and I would be able to move away again when fit and ready to do so.
I was still going to the hospital day unit twice weekly to ensure the dosage of the hydroxyurea was right and to check on my general health and it was on one of these trips that the news that one of my siblings was a tissue match came through first. Initially all we knew was that there was a match, not who it was but later on that day I received a phone call to confirm that it was my eldest sister Clare who was the match for me.
I phoned home to tell the parents first and it just so happened that Clare was there so she came on the phone and I asked her if she fancied donating me her bone marrow. Of course she said that she would do it. Then something strange happened - I started phoning round everyone and as soon as I said that I had a match nearly everyone said something along the lines of 'It's Clare isn't it?'.
Now Clare and I are probably the most similar of the five of us so it made sense to me that even on a molecular level we were the most alike but I didn't expect everyone else to come to the same conclusion. Of course I would have taken bone marrow from any of them but it secretly pleased me that it was Clare, not from any position of favouritism but because I know Mark isn't fond of hospitals, Alicia knows just a bit too much about them being a nurse, and Janine was in the last six months of her nursing training and I didn't want anything interfering with that. It was just right that it was Clare.
The funny thing for me is knowing for sure that Clare isn't a tissue match for her twin brother. Of course with them being non-identical twins that was always just as likely as for any sibling but it just felt funny to me.
Knowing that there was a match and that the transplant would be taking place in Glasgow kicked me into action and I started getting ready to go home. I wouldn't finally move until January but I started getting myself prepared for the goodbyes that were to come.
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