T + 365 Now We are One

My immune system is now one year old. It depends exactly on how you count it but I received by donor's cells on Tuesday 16th September 2008.

I was in the office so I bought cakes and cookies for people to celebrate and when I got home Gareth had got me a birthday card with a "1" on it and cooked me a celebratory meal for dinner ( with a little help from M&S).

The year has flown by in many respects and I was reading back over some of my posts at the time. It bought a lot of memories back. Can't say they are exactly happy ones as I was quite ill for most of the month of September but it is something to be able to say "I got through that".

Unfortunately my body has decided to join in the nostalgia by making me feel like crap, especially in the mornings. I haven't quite pinned down what is causing it and yesterday I was pretty good and able to go into the office but today I woke with the collywobbles and feeling nauseous and lacking in energy and this happened last Friday as well. Maybe it is related to dropping the steroid dose.

I've shuffled some of my meds round to help with the nausea and now take my itraconazole liquid on its own in the morning and sit up in bed very still for 30 mins after taking it. That seems to help.

I can cope and I do start to feel better as the day wears on it's just rather frustrating particularly as it is so inconsistent. Monday I helped a Andy move house and that was fine as well, then today I am laid low ( though have still managed to work a full day logged on to work from home). At least I don't have a temperature or any rash so it's unlikely to be an infection or GVHD issue.

On a completely unrelated topic during my recent infection and recovery I stopped shaving and so had quite the full beard by this weekend. Well the Devil makes work for idle beard trimmers so on Sunday I experimented with a new look:- (Click to embiggen, actually you can't for some reason blogger has gone wonky try the links here and here)

Mom was not impressed when I turned up for Sunday lunch even though I had lost the cravat by then.

Since then I have trimmed off the side burns and just have the long droopy moustache but I've started growing my usual goatee back. Though I might go for some of the other options exhibited in John Dyers blog. "The Quest for Every Beard Type"

The garden has also had a make over. It's gone from a meadow to this:-

And today the transformation was completed by Greenway Garden Services:-

They did the levelling, paving and gravelling (sic) and put the spare soil into the beds that Gareth built all in five hours.

It's not been exactly cheap but it's been easier to earn money typing at a keyboard to pay for it than trying to do it ourselves.

I think it will work out at about £2.30 a potato until 2017 but after that I'm in the paydirt :o)

I need to see if there are any late crops I can plant now . Answers on a postcard please. Or email. Or a comment below.

Here's to the next year! Wonder how things will be when I look back to today.....