I'm still laughing

If you have been tracking my progress since I started this blog back in Jan 2016, you will know that I usually look on the bright side of life. Nothing has changed. The recent setback has been resolved and the lumps have disappeared (who knows, maybe forever).

I had radiotherapy on the lump on my arm in February. For two weeks afterwards, the lump had swollen up substantially and I thought it would never go away. But after two weeks it suddenly started to subside and within a further week had disappeared completely. I was a little surprised at how tired radiotherapy made me feel (and, to be honest, still does). But overall it worked really, really well.

At the end of Feb I had my scheduled MMR jab (part of my treatment programme) and I know that also prompted an immune system response as I started to feel even more tired. I spent the month of March in a haze but could feel, almost on a daily basis, the lumps above and below my eye getting smaller. I was feeling tired because my immune system was in overdrive - generating MMR antibodies, and clearing out the remaining lumps of lymphoma. Then at the end of March, I had a second MMR shot. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the last scheduled treatment I have related to my transplant (well, except for a blood test in two months time to ensure I have indeed generated MMR antibodies).

I have no more perceptible lumps. All gone.
I have no more scheduled treatment.
I'm done :-)

I still have to go back to the hospital for checkups every couple of months. And the doctors tell me to expect to feel tiredness for another while (another couple of months or so), as my body recovers from the recent treatment.

The biggest event of all since the transplant has also occurred this month - I have just made contact with my donor. It's in the very early stages of email exchanges at the moment, but I am very excited at the prospect of meeting the man who saved my life.