Superbowling towards stems, go Ireland !

Evening bloggers, I have decided that a foray into political analysis at 3am after four days of chemo and two days of sleeping one hour a day due to injecting myself with growth hormone has probably not kicked that career off to a good start. So to the many emailers who pointed out the flaws in my analysis such as I did not account for religious wars, nutcase dictators, genocide, evil people and evil deeds done for the greater good (like atom bombs), OK I get it, there are times when talking is not going to solve the problem. Actually I enjoyed the email discussion a lot and the wide input from folks. To my brother, who lived through it all and laughed his way through the blog, and then phoned me to say he got it, but no one else would, thanks. And to Kenny the prize for the most concise analysis - "mullah what were you wittering on about, focus on getting well".

So things are going well here, mostly, Ireland won the opening rugby game well against Wales in a really good game. Scotland got stuffed by England yesterday, which is usual, but left the boys crying in their beer as you would expect. The program was broadcast in the new high definition standard so we were able to benefit from the various bits of kit I have installed over the last weeks to get great sound and a really good picture.

Other than causing me to stay up all night the growth hormone did nothing for the first two days, this caused me to worry that my bone marrow was shot, however finally today the pressure built up and the pain started in the big bones of my body. Which is a good sign that the injections are working, getting the bone marrow into overdrive ready for the stem cells to be harvested tomorrow. I am watching the clock to see when I can take the next painkillers so I doubt I will get much sleep tonight - which is not too bad as I have discovered that this is Superbowl Sunday, and they show the match here in the UK. So that's my plan, orange juice/snacks, movie and Superbowl to get me through to the stem cell procedure tomorrow.

I am feeling confident that will go well, it needs to, no messing, as if we do not get stem cells tomorrow or Tuesday then things are not good. What is odd is that everything else is going along as normal, the kids have school, drums and drama followed by Jazz and Tap, Lee is going to come in to see me during the procedure, but mostly life is going to continue while a machine tries to extract the cells that will, literally, save my life, its an odd feeling to be sure. As I said confidence is high and the last 14 people they did with Hodgkin's all managed to get stem cells out successfully, so lets tick the box tomorrow and move on.

The team which is doing the monster challenge is now up towards 15 folks so we are trying to set up accommodation for about 25 for that weekend 5th May. Lee has been out power walking most nights and today went with Lorna for a nine mile hike as part of her training plan. I think this is a lot of fun for her and a great focus for her and the others. Hopefully I will be out of hospital but there is a good chance that I will be either still in or too sick to travel up to be a supporter, so I am a bit jealous. Lets hope in a years time I will be fit enough to be a participant.

So I have bone pain and touchdowns and a long night ahead, but I am confident about tomorrows procedure and looking forward to getting it "in the bank", the stem cell bank!

Cheers

Gerry