Day one and as the rest of the world headed back to work we battled through the frost and headed up to the hospital. Just before Christmas a great deal of effort had been put in by many to get samples of my blood to the National Institute of Health in Maryland, USA. Everyone at my hospital put time aside in their busy days to do their bit and the tubes were filled and packed off on their way to an expectant team at NIH. Somewhat annoyingly Federal Express managed to make a complete hash of the ‘next day’ delivery so by the time the tubes finally arrived at their destination the samples were useless and by then we were into Christmas.

With the multitude of Bank Holidays that we’ve had of late today was the last, eleventh hour, opportunity to get a replacement set of blood taken and shipped so first on the agenda was a good deal of bloodletting followed by a tense and nervous wait in the coffee shop at the main entrance waiting for the FedEx van to arrive.

It was always going to be something of an odd day but it’s strange that my biggest concern was whether or not FedEx would manage to achieve the simple task of putting a box on a van, then a plane, then a van. Much to our surprise they accomplished the first step in a timely manner; tomorrow will tell whether they managed the rest.

Having dispatched some of my blood on its international adventure, the time came to treat the rest of it to something else quite new. Given the severity of my disease and its treatment at a cellular level the process of chemotherapy was oddly painless and without fuss. Cladribine used to be delivered into the body via a drip taking a few hours every day for seven days, medical science has moved on and the drug is now introduced to the body in simple subcutaneous injections over 5 days. Not unlike getting a flu jab: tiny needle; over in seconds.

Each day’s dose is split over two injections, in my case one into each arm although apparently abdomen was also an option. After a little consideration I couldn’t see any real advantage in the latter, and passed on the opportunity to strip off in a room full of others already with enough ills of their own.

And so it was, two small jabs and the job was done for the day. Resting up on the sofa thus far I feel fine, this is however only Day One. I’m advised that day’s seven to fourteen hold the potential to be the worst. One day at a time though.

For tomorrow I have only two hopes: One that it’s a dry enough for the morning trip to the hospital to be on foot, the other is that a box of blood arrives in a timely manner on someone’s desk on the other side of the Atlantic.