Well after all my talk of almost getting back to normal I was hit by the herpes simplex virus. Using all these steroid creams reduces the immunity in your skin so it let the coldsore virus I already had in my mouth just spread all over my face and chest. I've been back and forth from BMT to Dermatology trying to sort out the virus and eczema, having been on high-dose aciclovir for a couple of weeks it was pretty clear the virus was still spreading and some of the postules weren't scabbing over properly.
Needless to say when my consultant said on monday that I'd have to come in as an in-patient for IV treatment I was not all that happy. Considering I'd spent last Christmas in the hospital I was really looking forward to being with my family and my girlfriend this time around.
Luckily, seeing as I actually feel fine (though I don't look it), they put a pic line in my arm and have let me take the IV ganciclovir at home. Though I've still got to come back for a blood test boxing day which is a bit of a bitch, but least I'll be home at Christmas.
The eczema's settled down quite well, though I'm a bit itchy still, my scalps still the worst though. With the skin really flakey I'm just losing loads of hair which is pretty shit when you've already lost it once, but hopefully I won't have to shave it all off again.
Hopefully this'l be one of the last things to put up with anyway, I'm feeling so much better thesee days. Anyway Merry Christmas everybody, hope you manage to have a good one.
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Monday, 7 December 2009
Almost normal
I'm so far out of transplant now I've given up putting day +??? in front of the title because its getting more and difficult to work out! Needless to say its been nearly 7 months now since my transplant and I'm finally starting to glance at what its like to be normal again (not that I want to ginx it).
There have been a few problems, I developed this rash a few weeks ago and was itching like mad. The Doctors were worried it was going to be another bout of Graft vs. Host Disease, though it didn't seem similar to the rash I had the first time, but it did coincide with my weening off the Cyclosporin (goodbye immune suppression drugs). So needless to say I was pretty worried they were going to get me back on steroids again which would probably have pretty much destroyed my chances of finishing University this year. Luckily, after a few trips to the Dermatologist and skin biopsies later, a Dermatologist Consultant took one look at me and said I had eczema. Apparently its pretty common to pick up a suceptability to it from your donor after a transplant, especially if there was some suceptability to it in your family already (both my sisters have suffered from it when they were kids).
So after a couple of weeks of itching and having the most incredibly dry and flakey skin all over my body I was finally given a couple of steroid creams to help. They've worked really well, although I do have these little chicken-pox-like spots on my face now but hopefully they'll be gone fairly soon.
I had been feeling a bit down about the constant barrage of crap I seemed to be getting. I mean with between the burst blood vessel in my eye, the steroid effects, the IBS, the throat infection and now this skin thing it felt like it was just going to be one thing after another. I know it sounds ridiculous to complain about stuff like this when you've been through so much horrendous Chemo and treatment but I always managed to put a positive slant on that stuff because I knew it was what had to be done to make me better. Now it just feels like, having been through all that crap, it isn't really fair to keep on getting these little set backs. I suppose its partly because I expected to be right as rain a couple of months after my transplant, I wasn't really prepared for the long slog of recovery.
Still, like I said, I'm really starting to feel normal again now. I'm getting Uni work done, going to the gym to get my strength back and only going in to the hospital once a week. Now if I could just stop itching and get some more sleep...
There have been a few problems, I developed this rash a few weeks ago and was itching like mad. The Doctors were worried it was going to be another bout of Graft vs. Host Disease, though it didn't seem similar to the rash I had the first time, but it did coincide with my weening off the Cyclosporin (goodbye immune suppression drugs). So needless to say I was pretty worried they were going to get me back on steroids again which would probably have pretty much destroyed my chances of finishing University this year. Luckily, after a few trips to the Dermatologist and skin biopsies later, a Dermatologist Consultant took one look at me and said I had eczema. Apparently its pretty common to pick up a suceptability to it from your donor after a transplant, especially if there was some suceptability to it in your family already (both my sisters have suffered from it when they were kids).
So after a couple of weeks of itching and having the most incredibly dry and flakey skin all over my body I was finally given a couple of steroid creams to help. They've worked really well, although I do have these little chicken-pox-like spots on my face now but hopefully they'll be gone fairly soon.
I had been feeling a bit down about the constant barrage of crap I seemed to be getting. I mean with between the burst blood vessel in my eye, the steroid effects, the IBS, the throat infection and now this skin thing it felt like it was just going to be one thing after another. I know it sounds ridiculous to complain about stuff like this when you've been through so much horrendous Chemo and treatment but I always managed to put a positive slant on that stuff because I knew it was what had to be done to make me better. Now it just feels like, having been through all that crap, it isn't really fair to keep on getting these little set backs. I suppose its partly because I expected to be right as rain a couple of months after my transplant, I wasn't really prepared for the long slog of recovery.
Still, like I said, I'm really starting to feel normal again now. I'm getting Uni work done, going to the gym to get my strength back and only going in to the hospital once a week. Now if I could just stop itching and get some more sleep...
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