Well back to reality after a lovely week in Tasmania, and hot, dry Fremantle. The holiday was lovely, however it was good to get back home to Andy and the cats.

A couple of firsts today;

The first swim in the pool, I am allowed to swim in the morning, when the water is cleanest, and thee are no children. This is because my immune system, while recovering really well, is still somewhat compromised and it seems wise to avoid any contamination. I swam 12 lengths, very happy with that as it is the distance I was managing before I went to Russia. This time was much slower, and with long breaks between every 4 lengths, but I do feel I can slowly increase up to the 20 lengths I used to manage a year ago.

And the first haircut ! The look on my hairdresser’s face was priceless, she knew she hadn’t seen me for a while and was expecting a wild massive curly mop to tame. A very small trim around the back and the edges, so it will grow out a little tidier.

I’m still doing well, getting tired easily and I need to remember to rest or I fall over pretty quickly. However my right hand is getting slowly better, as is my right leg, and the improvements seem to be sustained as long as I keep my exercises going. No noticeable big differences to report right now, just feeling a little stronger, and walking a little further before my leg goes. This probably means I will need to keep doing mobility work for he rest of my life, but that’s not a sacrifice if I keeps me moving.

I had my first MRI yesterday, I will not know the results until next week when I see my neurologist, but I am very interested to see if there are any changes. Note that I am now skeptical about MRIs, as they indicate the effects of MS i.e. the lesions, but are not true indication of how the patient is actually impacted. The Russia philosophy is that we may have micro lesions, which will not show up in MRIs, but that will impact functionality. These micro lesions will be calmed by the AHSCT for many people, leading to the improvements which may not show up on MRIs. Saying all hat, I am very keen to see what the results show.

I found a great image for the treatment I underwent, so it’s here. The collection is of my stem cells. mobilisation was getting the stem cells out of the bone marrow and into the blood. My chemo would be classified as medium, they call it conditioning. plastic is what they call the highly neutropenic stage. Recovery … well that’s now.

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