Feeling low

I am feeling very low. Anna’s boyfriend came this morning with a van to move the rest of Anna’s things to her new flat. I find it difficult going up there and seeing it nearly empty.

The post has just come. I receive copies of all the letters my transplant consultant writes to my GP and other specialists. It was difficult to read that he “has a strong suspicion that there has been a relapse”. I know that if a relapse occurs within 12 months of a transplant that there are few options. If a transplant fails it is possible to have another one, but this one hasn’t failed as such; it may just not have prevented the mantle cell lymphoma returning.

This weekend my throat swelled up even more so I am particularly worried. I go to see the ENT consultant on Wednesday afternoon but I very much doubt if he can give me a definitive answer.

Throughout the months since I was diagnosed in 2007 there have always been further treatments and fall-back positions, then there was the hope offered by the transplant. I have pinned everything on the transplant and that hope is easily destroyed. It may be that all of this inflammation is related to GVHD but I am not so sure it is likely as that would happen to everyone else who had GVHD and that is 50% of all bone marrow transplant patients.

For the first time I feel totally helpless. I know this must have happened to other transplant patients but I don’t know much about what happens now. I must just wait for events to unfold and hope against hope.