Stem Cell Harvest

Christian needs to have a stem cell harvest next week. It will involve him going into The Royal Marsden for a couple of days where he will get a new line fitted, unfortunately the Hickman Line will not work for this. They will take blood and draw stem cells which will then be frozen. Stem cells are special cells that can develop into either red cells, white cells or platelets and are normally produced by the bone marrow. When Christian has intensive chemotherapy in a few weeks he will not be able to produce any stem cells and they will use what they harvest next week. He should be in hospital for a couple of days.

At the moment he is in pretty good form and seems to have reacted better to the last dose of chemotherapy than the first. His mouth is getting sore which could be a sign that he is developing mucositis, this is when the lining of the digestive system becomes inflamed, a common symptom of chemotherapy. His leg pains seem to have also got more frequent recently. We have an appointment with Kathy Pritchard Jones on Friday so we can discuss some of these issues with her. They are trying to fit him in for a bone scan and an x-ray for Friday too.

The line up for the 10km run is looking good. Thanks very much to all those who have offered to sponsor so far and those who have are joining in. Even if you are not running please put a note in the diary and come along and cheer everybody along. All the team will have the same T-shirts so we should be easy to spot…