My Donor Pulls Out

Monday 24th September 2007

I get a call from Andre that my no.1 donor has pulled out - reasons undisclosed - so they are now making contact made with the no.2 prospective donor. This will obviously include a number of checks etc. and I have a provisional admission date of exactly 4 weeks later than the original i.e. Tuesday 23 October.

Oddly enough I am very relaxed about this, mainly because I knew there was a back-up. Hopefully he/she won't do the same! I am also rather pleased things have been put back as I still have this very nasty chesty cough and cold which I picked it up in Kings and which has been with me for over 4 weeks. Added to that, my Hickman Line is still rather painful - not helped by all my coughing I am sure! So the chances were that I would have insisted on a delay anyway in order to get my cough and cold sorted out before starting the 8 days of rather exacting chemotherapy I am told I must have. Well it also gives me time to do the many things I had intended doing before going in for the transplant - and which I had not found the time to do. This includes my tax return!! - which I have just started to work on today.

Tina is not quite as relaxed about things as I am, but agrees it would have been necessary to put back the transplant because of my cough and cold. She is more comfortable now we have a new date - albeit provisional - for my admission. We are having a couple of days with Anna, Nick and Eva passing through en route to Slovakia on their latest assignment. They will be away for about 3 weeks, which sounds like quite good timing.