Up at 6am. So wide awake with last minute thoughts to sort out. Still pitch dark in the bedroom but the cats knew it was just before dawn and were both out somewhere. Downstairs the bread maker, on an overnight timer, was filling the kitchen with a fresh baked aroma. 30 minutes later I could hear Christine creeping about above, not knowing I was already up. Shortly after 7am. the car was filling up with bags. Clothes, books, CD’s, camera, computer, paper, pens and pencils. Everything I might need for 6 weeks or more, if I still have a brain though it all.

The 100 miles or so, over the Galloway hills to the hospital, went smoothly. A very still morning with mists hanging over the upper parts of a mirror calm Loch Ken. The very modern, single room I was assigned was much nicer than I’d expected which was a relief considering I am to spend the next 6 weeks in it.


After unpacking, arranging the space, and testing to see if there was a mobile and mobile internet signal ( and there was !) the Hickman Line dressings were changed by a nurse and blood taken for testing for infections. After lunch, while Christine was away having a sandwich, Shilpa, the doctor, made a physical check for any signs of lumps around the lymph nodes, but I think I was clear. Then it was off for a walk across to the old hospital building for a chest X-ray. We knew there was to be a bone marrow biopsy around 4pm back at the room but there was a good hour in hand so we explored the whole vast leafy complex that once made up the adjoining mental hospital. Squirrels, magpies, and possible parking spaces; the hospital parking is a nightmare.
It made sense for Christine to get off before the 5 O’clock traffic jams so we made our partings in the 4th floor corridor and I returned to my fate. The biopsy wasn’t too painful and, while I was still on my back letting the hip bone clot and settle, a second doctor called Mave came and covered my chest with electrodes and wires and tested my inner workings.
So that’s about it for day one or T.-9 as they are calling it, (nine days count down to the transplant). They should now have a base line of my present condition with which to compare any changes since the last biopsy in May and with any in the weeks, months, and years ahead.
Ah, not quite ‘it’. 9.30pm and a pile of tablets have just arrived. Lost count of how many, 8-9 ? Took a second glass of water to swallow them all !