Today is Day -5. My 5th day of living ‘in a bubble’. In 5 days time it will be Day 0, the day of my Stem Cell Transplant, the start of my new life.

I am adjusting  as well as can be expected to life in two rooms; my bathroom and my everything else room. My situation improved greatly yesterday when I was moved into a new and significantly bigger room which should now be mine for the duration of the transplant. I now have an exercise bike, a TV and a DVD player and all of these should help to bring a bit more variety to my life inside four walls.

I have made my mark on the place, sticking up photos and cards to make it feel more like a home. My favourite piece is my ‘B is for Bollocks’ sign. My dear friend Lou sent it to me when I was in hospital last year. B is for Bollocks – Bollocks to cancer. My nurse remarked on how brilliant it was suggesting that there should be a copy on every patient’s wall.

As far as treatment is concerned it has been a case of so far so good. I have been fortunate enough to have not reacted particularly badly to any of my treatments so far. I have had three days of Campath, an antibody treatment, and two days of the chemo drug Fludarabine. Today is my third day of Fludarabine and I will have it for a further two days. All of the drugs are hooked up to my ‘tentacles’ and are slowly pumped in by the IV machine which is a painless and surprisingly mundane procedure; often I forget that I am connected at all.