Graduation on Day 40 !

Well 40 days ago I had no bone marrow or immune system left that was the day the little miracle stem cells were thawed out and fed back into my bloodstream, somehow they have found their way to my bones, grown up and are producing a new bone marrow, blood system and immune system, keeping me alive, but not just that, hopefully alive and cancer free.

Today Liz the transplant nurse officially graduated me from the Monday morning "transplant club" as she and Dr Scott feel I am doing well enough not to need blood transfusions and regular twice weekly blood count checks. I was a bit surprised and pleased at the same time as some of the folks there on a Monday have had transplants as long as six months ago. It seems like the fact that I got my own cells back (rather than a family members), I had a good harvest of stem cells and my reasonably smooth, infection free, transplant has continued to combine with good diet and exercise to get me ahead of the normal recovery curve. So now I have to see Dr Scott next Thursday and after that I may be on monthly check ups until the dreaded scan in August.

I saw Gene Wilder on a chat show (Parkinson) two nights ago and he told his story of having a stem cell transplant just like mine five years ago, he told his story well, as you would expect, but captured the dilemma of this illness well when Parky asked him if he was cured. He replied something like "well, we don't say cured in this game, for a while you are "in remission" after about five years, where I am now, you are "in complete remission" and if you die from something else then you were cured". This captures very well the tension which will exist for me from here on in, as there is a chance of not being cured or the treatments considerable collateral damage leading to other cancers or problems in the future. So for me (and in reality for all of you) each day, month, and year is a gift from here on in, rather than the firm expectation it used to feel like.

So I need to build up my stamina and fitness now to keep up the good progress made so far and try to get ready for my hopeful return to "normal" life at the end of the summer. My daily gym and swim exercise will be kept up but around the house I am going to try to move from slouch to domestic goddess as practice for the stamina needed to fly around the world and work from 7am to 10pm in a different time zone (actually we did work some crazy hours in some very odd time zones in the past). Lee has helpfully compliled a "Honey do" list for me "if I have time" which involves gardening, carpet cleaning and decorating a couple of bedrooms, which will keep me busy through June... so I shall need a holiday by the time the kids break for the summer. Helpfully my doctors restrictions on when I am allowed to go back to work co-incide nicely with the end of the school holidays so we all will go back onto the treadmill at the same time at the end of August.

I am planning to have a couple of chats with leadership of Gore between now and then so that I do not just turn up to an empty desk and a computer and wonder what to do next! My mind is begining to turn in that direction now so those chats will be interesting for me, it will be curious to try to build back up my reputation and the confidence of the organisation in me (and my own confidence in my stamina and ability to focus, though I feel better about this as every day passes). I actually quite like the idea of "throwing the dice" in mid carreer and changing the direction of my work, not so much as to want to change company, as I really like working with Gore, but more to do something a little bit different with new challenges to keep life interesting. The guy who introduced me to Lee tried to put her off by saying "the problem with Gerry is he likes new things" that is still true today 15 years later.

So with a nice celebration dinner with Lee on Friday night, and graduation from the transplant support club today I am feeling more normal than I have for a long time, and begining to look forward to the future, I hope you all are too.

Cheers

Gerry