Hotel de BMT

I'm all settled in to my room on the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, Room 8 with fridge, tv, stereo, wardrobe, en suite bathroom and shower and a delightful view of a small garden 5 floors below and across the way to the Birmingham University clock tower. I've taken a couple of picture of my room and if I can work out a way to upload them to this blog I'll post them up.

My EEE PC or "laptot" as a friend calls it works really well over my Three 3g Broadband Modem I recently purchased so I have full internet access on a proper computer ( running Linux of course ). This means that as well as access to email and instant messaging I'll be able to add links to my blog posts as shown in this paragraph, so I can add links to explain any geeky or medical jargon.

The nurses here are great as usual , all very friendly and one I know from East 3a and she remembered me as well.

I've settled in with the usual obs chart, weight and then bloods samples from my line. However they are asking everyone to sign up for a study on Graft Vs Host and the reactivation of Chickenpox as shingles ( or Varicella Zoster virus as it is known ). All this means is some extra blood samples taken whenever they take some in clinic and also an extra bit of skin in a biopsy if they ever
take one to test me for a rash related to Graft vs Host. So I've signed up for this and also the Anthony Nolan Trust are doing a study on genetic factors in transplants and want one extra blood sample as well.

All in this meant I had 12 small phials and two 20 ml syringes of blood taken. That works out at about half the amount taken for a single unit blood donation so not as bad as it sounds.

Dinner will be on it's way shortly and in the meantime while I am allowed out of the room I'm off to find the kitchen to have a green tea with mint.

My counts should be ok until the day after I receive the stem cells ( next Monday ) so the nurses encourage you to come out of your room until then to reduce the effects of the isolation of a single room.

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