I've avoided saying anything over the past month or so because I simply couldn't trust my mind to come up with something comprehensible. I've been using diazepam in that time and my mind has been doing all sorts of wandering.
The reason for said drug has been that I've damaged cartilage and ligaments around my ribs so these were prescribed to relax the muscles. They worked a treat but my mind was certainly not my own for any of the time I had any of it in my body.
I'm only taking it very sparingly now so it's back to reality again.
I was at my monthly visit to the Beatson Oncology Centre on monday and had a great chat with my consultant about how things are going. The transplant team want certain criteria fulfilled and my haematology team are concerned about some of them, or at least doing them all at once. I've fulfilled two out of three of the things they want, which as Meat Loaf so eloquently put it, ain't bad.
I'm now the correct weight but I'm going to keep putting some more on in case I lose some if ever I get an infection. I've stopped one of the drugs they wanted me to come off and now there's a dialogue opening between the two teams about the third criteria which is about anti-fungal prophylaxis. It's the drug that was used to beat my aspergillus pneumonia two years ago and I've remained on it since to prevent a relapse. Being honest I don't' really know why this is an issue because post transplant I'll be put on an anti-fungal again. Perhaps a change of specific drug will be the conclusion. I'll let the docs work out the details and carry on as normal.
Also this week I went to visit the Maxillofacial clinic to meet the surgeon who dealt with my dental hygiene post Bone Marrow Transplant. I need to get a little bit of work done to make sure everything is in good order prior to transplant as the immunosuppression given afterwards will leave me open to infection and the first port of call for that sort of thing is the mouth so I'll be going back to the duo of mouthwashes that I used back when I had the BMT. At this point my gums will recede and my teeth will move a little so I have to be observed keenly. It's not the first thing you think about when thinking of transplant surgery but it is really quite important.
I've got a booklet from the transplant team that I've been using with visitors. I used to be very careful and only divulge the bits of information I was happy to dole out to people, and that depended very much on the particular person. Now I'm giving them the booklet to read for themselves so they know a lot more. It also allows them to ask me questions about any aspect of it all. It's not a strategy without flaw and it can be a tough process going through it with someone but it's so much better than how I used to just filter out the scary stuff.
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