Saturday May 16 - Tuesday May 19. Finally officially diagnosed.

I spent most of Saturday in the beer garden of my local pub with Tom and Sam, before heading back for some Fifa at mine. Sunday was the same as all my Sundays are, football and a roast.


I was up by 07:15 Monday morning in order to start getting ready for the hospital. My mum and I got a cab to the station and got a train to King's at Denmark Hill arriving at 09:00. First I had my blood tests, which I now expect as soon as I arrive at hospital. We then waited for our appointment with the doctors where I should hopefully be officially diagnosed.

We were soon taken into a room where there were were two doctors, one who had flown over from Canada as well as my clinical Nurse Nana, she is absolutely lovely. I was asked the usual questions of 'How are you feeling?', 'Have you been having any problems?' etc before the meeting properly started. They began by telling me what it is that I have been diagnosed with, which is aplastic anaemia. I had expected this. There are three classifications of this illness; non-severe, severe and very severe. Mine falls between severe and very severe. Apparently my illness is very rare, with about 2 or 3 people a year getting it in the UK.

The booklet doesn't get cheerier.

I was then told about the possible treatments, sadly my sister's wasn't a bone marrow match with me. She should have tried harder in my opinion, #letdown. This means that the hospital would have to try and find a match for me via the Anthony Nolan register which could take months, and seeing as my immune system is extremely low there is the possibility that I could get a potentially dangerous infection during this waiting period. As such I will instead be getting a drug treatment called 'ATG'. This means that I will be in hospital for a few weeks receiving treatment, some of the possible side affects aren't great but could make for some really cool pictures. King's are hoping to begin this treatment as soon as possible, likely to be in the next fortnight, so the beginning of June. But before then I need to have lots of organ scans to make sure my body can cope with what is going to happen.

The way I've understood the course, in it's simplest terms, without getting techinical about all the stuff going into me (apparently a lot of it is horse. Seriously. Horse.). 7 out of 10 people finish the course, and of that 7, 20% of them it doesn't work for at all. So the odds are in my favour which is good. I will be in hospital for roughly 3 weeks, as most reactions happen in the 2nd or 3rd week. I will then be going back to being an outpatient, visiting hospital 2 or 3 (maybe more) times a week. 3 months after the treatment is done, the doctors will know for certain whether it is working or not. It's a cure of sorts, but its not called a cure as the old ill cells will still be in me, but I will have new antibodies. This is of course if it all goes well, there is still a chance regardless that I may have to have a bone marrow transplant as well, but hopefully this will all go well.
I think I have explained all this correctly.

PS3 taking the piss out of my transfusions. HP+1

After all this fun, my mum and I went for a meal before going home where I played PS3 for the rest of the day.


Today I've been writing this and have no plans bar chilling out.

On Saturday I will be back in Lincoln to collect the rest of my stuff from my house which I am really looking forward to.







I would like to take this time to point out how terrible a prediction my mate Chris made on New Years day. I'm not convinced this prediction could have been any more wrong.

His balls lied.