The weaning begins

I agreed with the docs this week that I would start reducing the dose of immuno-suppressants that I take. This is good news for a couple of reasons :- the fewer drugs I take, the better as far as I'm concerned and this will allow my immune system to start working better and keep any lymphoma at bay. Assuming I get no major graft vs host issues, it'll take a couple of months to come of the suppressants completely. Once I'm off them, I will be able to stop taking another horrible drug that is preventing my blood levels from rising above half way (but it is protecting me from a nasty version of pneumonia, so I guess it's worth it). So, I'm on the way to becoming drug-free which is a great prospect (except for penicillin - I'll be on that for the rest of my life because the transplant does things to my spleen that it never recovers from).

I received more good news this week - the CT scan results came back and, with the exception of my slightly enlarged spleen, everything is completely normal. The spleen is no surprise because it was enlarged going into the transplant (apparently normal should be 13cm and mine is 16cm). It has not increased in size since and the enlargement could be scar tissue as a result of how stretched it was this time last year (doctors at the time called it a whopper :-)  ). It could also be lymphoma in there, but given the doses of chemo I have just been through, and the fact that the disease in all my other lymph nodes has completely cleared up, I'm inclined to think not.  Because I'm reducing my immuno-suppressants which will allow my immune system to strengthen, if there is lymphoma left in the spleen then it will be a good test to see if the new immune system eradicates it. In any case, we will be watching this closely over the coming months......