I had a meeting with the consultant today. The second bone marrow biopsy apparently revealed more evidence of what was wrong than the first. As a result a course of treatment has been agreed to deal with the failure of my bone marrow to produce platelets and blood as it should.
The plan is that I take a particular drug twice a day from tomorrow. I will also have blood tests at Southampton General Hospital twice a week to see if the drug is doing its job. If it is not, or if it is causing me grief, then there will be a change of drug.
I will continue to have blood and platelet transfusions as and when they are needed. For me, on the basis of the last 10 weeks, that seems to be a transfusion every 2 or 3 weeks. They are painless.
It takes about 2 hours to pour the blood or platelets into me. I don’t know how it all fits into my body, but it does. I do a WhatsApp group Wordle, a Sudoku or two and read a John Grisham to kill the time.
This regime may well continue for up to 6 months when there will be a major review.
My apologies to the medics amongst you for the lack of detail but its difficult for a non medic to pick up all the terminology and it will be a few weeks before the letter is produced and sent to the GP!
I have put this on the blog to save emailing and to save on phone calls!
Thank you to everyone for your good wishes.
By the way, I will be resuming lunches out immediately and will be getting out the cruise brochures forthwith!
Richard