This week started off with the first of three appointments with the dermatologist as a check up. As I had mentioned before, my itchy ears were still really bothering me and the itching had spread to my face, mainly around my eyes and cheeks. She said that this was most likely being caused by all the steroids which I had been taking and gave me some more anti-biotics to help it stop. So far, they haven't worked, but it's early days yet.
My second appointment this week was with the haemotologist and he had the results of my scan from the previous week. He had good news. The scan showed that the cancer had completely cleared! WOOOOHOOO!!! This meant that they could continue with the next stage of the stem cell transplant. He gave us some more details of exactly what was going to happen from this point. Towards the end of January, I have to have one more session of chemo, but only one of the four drugs I am normally given, however, it will be a higher dosage. Straight from that for the next five days, I am going to have more of the same injections which I had been having after the chemo. These injections are to help stimulate stem cell growth. A week or so after the injections, I will have my stem cells removed. This involves being hooked up to a machine in both arms. They take blood from one and in the machine it seperates the stem cells from my blood and removes them. These will then be harvested and frozen. The excess blood is then put back in my body. This whole process should last about six hours...
A week or so after this (toward the middle of February), I will be admitted into hospital where I will undergo daily treatments of high intensity chemo. I have to be admitted due to the intensity of the chemo almost guaranteeing that it will make me ill, especially as my immune system is already compromised and have low blood counts from the previous chemos.
Although I am now in remission, there is still quite a long journey ahead!
