I have just had my first shower in two days and that's only because I have been pooed on quite violently. Having spent Sunday suffering from a completely unrelated stomach bug, the symptoms of which Emma now exhibits with great abandon, I spent Monday afternoon, still nauseas, having a Bone Marrow Biopsy. The second of my life but the first I planned to sleep through.

I had barely sat down before I was tagged and a cannula was in my arm. Just over six months on from finishing my chemo it was time to see whether or not the effort had all been worthwhile. The cannula felt so normal; an almost welcome addition to my arm. Thoughts of all the other injections, lines, scans, jabs, pills I have had came flooding back. It has only been six months but it feels as though we have been going through this for years.

The procedure was to be done in the 'Day Room' where oh so many months ago I had been given my chemo. It was relatively quiet in there with only one patient on a drip. A small bed was prepared in the corner and as the time got close a small screen was erected so as not to add to everyone else's woes by having to see me drop my jeans and curl up, arse out, on the bed.

The process is relatively simple: having cleaned a small area on the back of my hip a large, very hard needle is inserted through the skin and flesh and into the bone. This is used to take some aspirate - a liquid portion of bone marrow. With this done a thicker needle is used to take a hard core of bone marrow. Slices of which i believe are placed on slide of glass for viewing under a microscope.

On the advice of pretty much everyone I spoke to about it I had this done under a general anaesthetic. I do not remember my last BMB being particularly painful as such but I do recall a lot of swearing and it being very, very uncomfortable. And so it was that, staring at the wall, I was given first a pain killer which made my eyesight go blurry and then another jab to put me out. One I am pretty sure was not working as I continued to stare at the wall listening to people clattering behind me as 'the area' was swabbed.

I was about to point out that I was still awake when all of a sudden I was sitting up on the bed and everyone had gone. Only my wife and one of the nurses remained. There was a dull ache in my back. I do not know how long I sat there and I cannot remember whether I was fully dressed. For some time after, hours even, I kept asking the same questions and telling people the same things I had told them only minutes before.

Apparently during the procedure I had wriggled, kicked my legs, and moaned about how painful and uncomfortable it all was. I recall none of this even now. I am not so sure if the anasthetic did not so much make me unaware of what was going on but just made me instantly forget everything the instant that it happened.

Memories of the journey home are still patchy and the only evidence I had to show of the ordeal was a tiny bloodied dressing that had to stay on and stay dry for 48 hours. Having to wash at a sink rather than shower brought back memories of washing in my isolation room and this morning we attempted an "upside down shower" where I hung over the edge of the bath and my wife helped wash everything above the dressing which was, in that position, now below the dressing. There was simply no way I could go to work in this heat without something bordering on a proper shower.

My memory is back to normal - just averagely bad - and the affects of the stomach bug have pretty much passed. It has reaffirmed my idea that any day is a good day if it starts with a shower. My only regret is that I didn't have my Blackberry in my pocket when Emma let loose. At least then I could get a new one.

I should have written sooner. Much sooner. To leave my ongoing tale with a full body CT scan looming on the horizon and then not utter a word since is pretty bad form. It is not that there have been so many crises to deal with or that there has been news that has been simply to bad to bare. If I am honest with you I have been doing an inordinate amount of sleeping and although my fever has begun to dwindle one of the times it does flare up is the same time of night I prefer to write and of the two activities laying in bed and burning up always wins through.

The scan went ahead on Monday and my early hopes that I would not have to drink that terrible liquid again were soon dashed as two bottles of the stuff were brought to my room one for immediate use and one for a few hours time. Having scoffed as much food as possible before my 'nil by mouth' deadline I was eventually wheeled down to Radiology and having been parked in a draughty doorway for a while was led into the big room and passed through a large whirling hoop a few times before being wheeled back up to by room.

It is worth pointing out at this juncture that I have not lost the power of my legs but, when in hospital, you must be wheeled everywhere. Its the law. If necessary they may even force you to place a blanket over your knees for good measure.

I have had CT scans before but was still highly nervous about the results of this one. There is that fear that, in looking for the source of infection in such detail, that they'll find something unrelated but staggeringly serious that may have ordinarily gone unnoticed. The results came late in the day on Tuesday and, thankfully, there were no tumours or failing organs. There were also no signs of lost car keys or old coins. My spleen, it is to be noted, has shrunk back to its pre-leukaemia size, it is now a mere eleven centimetres and it is estimated that I have lost three kilograms in body weight because of it.

There was no sign of the source of any infection but as this week has progressed my anti-biotics have been changed to one that got me out of here last time. Early on in the week a number of times in the day and night I would have what I call an 'episode': A feeling of sudden coldness and utterly uncontrollable shakes. Climbing under as many blankets as I could muster over an hour or so I would warm up and the shakes would stop only to be replaced with an intense heat. My skin would be physically hot to the touch and exhaling would be like breathing in a desert. Throughout the whole thing my head would throb, not as a headache. No real pain. Just a pressure. A seemingly endless pressure. This would also last at least an hour and I would remain under my blankets throughout until I felt I could emerge into the world again.

As the week has gone on, particularly under my new drugs, things have slowly improved. I still get measurable temperature spikes, which are highly annoying and blights on my otherwise good 'obs' charts, but the symptoms of my episodes are now far, far reduced. I can still feel them coming on but the effect now doesn't get much further than "oo its a bit cold in here" for half an hour before an hour or so of "oo its quite warm, I'll have to open the window." The head throb is not as harsh or long lasting which has meant I have started listening to more music now. Something I was really missing but just did not have the inclination to do.

I would like to have been out of here by the weekend but it is clear that that is not going to happen. Even if I had a symptomless day tomorrow they would still want to keep me in for the weekend but there are rumours that they may let me go outside between drugs which could open the door to the prospect of real food. If not then I am seriously considering the various methods I may need to employ to get a Chinese takeaway delivered from my favourite oriental eatery in Richmond.

Having dreams is the only way to get by in here. Even if they will never come true.

For while I just sat watching my new cell mates and the nurses and visitors coming to and fro. The guy next to me asked for a private room and was being readied for a move but by the time the night shift came on he was still with us. There were repeated requests and eventually a nurse came in to announce that he was going now. Five minutes later another nurse, one who had treated me a lot during my first incarceration, came in to tell him he had no reason to have a separate room and was not going to be getting it. She then turned to me and said "Richard. You have a temperature. You're getting your old room back."

I was quickly wheeled out and into not just any side room but the same side room I have already spent two weeks in earlier this month.

Frankly I am grateful for the peace and quiet and the unlimited visiting hours a side room brings. I also get to turn the lights out when I like.

Today though I ache. More than yesterday. This week I have only felt it when I twisted the wrong way but now its beginning to be there even when I am sitting still. It is hard though to discern how much of it is linked to whatever fever I have and how much of it is just sitting in bed all day. I feel like I need a damn good stretch but an attempt earlier today was aborted due to to many twinges and a sudden feeling that the room was icy cold.

Nothing has grown from the blood cultures that were taken yesterday. Blood is taken and then injected into two bottles that have a sloped internal bottom. On the slope is a nutritious medium for viruses, bacteria and fungus to grow on. The blood slides over this slope and the bottles are left to see if anything grows on the medium. Having no result today does not mean I am in the clear. It should take a few days to grow and there would be concern if there were enough bacteria in my blood to culture this quickly. The jury then is still out on that one.

Tomorrow will just be a day of laying around until Monday's CT scan when they hope to take a look at my now shrunken spleen and find where this pocket of infection may be hiding.

Until then I have a lot of sleeping to do.

The cannula has just been removed from my right arm. It is a process that is by far the most painful part of my entire treatment mainly because cannula's require so much sticky tape and I have such hairy arms. The plastic tube is now replaced with a mild sting that over the next few days will turn into an itchy little mound as the hole begins to heal. For now my days of intravenous antibiotics are behind me. I can now look forward to washing with two hands and brushing my teeth with the right.

I can also look forward to going home.

Tomorrow, at some point, once doctors have signed the right forms and the pharmacy have supplied me with a big bag of pills I'll be putting on jeans and a t-shirt and heading home. My neutrophils are now at 1700.

The day started gloomy on the outside and once again gloomy on the inside as I contemplated another twenty four hours in my room. I had pretty much lost all enthusiasm for doing anything other than napping or watching the pigeons on the roof outside. It is not that I was short of things to do, to occupy my mind, I was just sick of this little room. I still am, but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

It is too early to tell whether the treatment has worked, whether any hairy cells lurk in my marrow unzapped by the Cladribine injections that started what feels like a lifetime ago. I am guessing that, as my counts were at zero for a few days, the treatment got all of the ones in my blood. Only another bone marrow biopsy will tell whether it was 100% successful. That will come in a few weeks and unpleasant as it is I am not dwelling on it now. My freedom is the only thing on my mind and it is hard to decide just what I want to do first when I get out other than run from room to room in our flat just because I can. Making a decent cup of tea and cooking a proper meal will certainly be high on the agenda.

Not before I've had a proper shower though.

There's just so much I can do its overwhelming; I think its time to dig out that list I was making.

Well the usual Monday team meeting followed by a review of current projects and then a plan for the week probably happened but once again I was not there. I never thought I'd long for Monday mornings at the office. More awake today than I have been I did check my emails and I even Skyped with a few colleagues but soon fatigue overcame me and having found the optimum tilt on my bed I napped while I waited for porridge to arrive.

Being a Monday morning the hospital was full of more bustle than it had been at the weekend. There's a greater concentration of doctors whizzing around and more specialists brandishing the tools of their trade. A cheery phlebotomist breezed into my room not long after the remnants of my porridge had been whisked away, replaced by a mug of tea. Armed with a large 'sharps bucket', a few empty vials, and an elastic tourniquet band with vampire bats printed on it, she prepared to take this mornings bloods. Two vials rapidly extracted and she fluttered away.

For those not nerdy enough to have googled it yet what I am stuck waiting here for is a decent Absolute Neutrophil Count. In a microlitre of normal blood, that is one cubic millimetre, there should be between 1,500 and 2000 neutrophils. Below 500 and you are considered neutropeanic. C'est moi!

On Friday I had zero.

By Saturday I had 30.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, I can announce that I have 400! Cue subdue fanfare.

I take this two ways: Firstly it means that I cannot go home so I am stuck with my room and the 'one hand wash' for a while yet. What it also means however is that the reboot of my immune system has started, my body has found itself able to make some new white cells and they are slowly coming out and doing their thing. My sore throat is still there but much subdued, inspection with a Maglite earlier today by one of my doctors revealed the presence of puss. Not something I would ordinarily be happy about let alone share on the internet but it is a sign that my body is fighting back. My cannula holes still itch but are slowly disappearing. Today at a cellular level wounds have been cleansed and new flesh created. This is, whenever it happens, amazing, in the true sense of the word, but today it is also exciting.

My doctors both expressed genuine excitement at this weekend's change being a team that really invest in the people they are treating rather than adopting a them versus the disease approach whilst being annoyed by the human that's in the middle. I really cannot fault the care I have had here although I think it is less my charm and more that my wife is heavily pregnant that helps curry favour with the nurses.

I have no idea how the growth of neutrophils is supposed to work. It may be linear, logarithmic, or just completely wayward. As such I have no idea how long before I have 500 needed to leave neutropenia or even the magic 1000 that may secure my release. At least we are back into normal weekdays now so they will be counting them every day.

Yesterday was spent mainly sleeping and in the moments I was awake I was not inclined to write. Late Friday I started to get a sore throat, it worsened through the day yesterday and come this morning it felt like I was swallowing razorblades. A doctor who came to see me on Saturday had a look but did not seem overly concerned. "The inside of your throat is a little red, but there's no puss." he offered cheerfully. Before then adding that I couldn't make puss even if I wanted to.

The throat is now calming down and the used cannula holes in my arm that yesterday lay dormant have now swollen a little and itch like buggery. I'm hoping that these are all signs that I have an immune system that is waking up. That neutrophils are being made and that they are slowing swilling round my body doing stuff, fighting infection, repairing wounds. I could very easily, of course, be wrong. I have no medical training. No idea about molecular biology. I am merely clutching at straws, hoping that tomorrow they'll find cause to release me back into the wild.

In the absence of any hospital solution my water is now being brought in by my wife. Glass Perrier bottles containing cool, but once boiled, tap water. I simply couldn't stomach the sterile water they were giving me and am sure that it had enough plastic content to induce something even worse than what I have already. To not drink anything could damage my kidneys as they try to dispose of a gazillion dead hairy cells and a noxious concoction of anti-viral and antibiotic drugs. If your pee starts looking like coca cola it really is time to hydrate some more.

My brother has sent in his PSP so what with the laptop, camera, audio recorder, phone, broadband stick, and Bose headphones I now have enough kit here to start up a small electrical retailer. Given that I cannot leave the room I am pretty confident however that none of it will get swiped. If I was on an open ward I would probably be sleeping with it all under my blankets. Having moved into my room in a small rucksack I think I am going to need a suitcase when it finally comes to moving out.

Lack of stimulation then is not my real cause of boredom. It is lack of connection, connection with the outside world. I watch people pass in the car park below yet feel no association. It has snowed, rained, and been sunny whilst I have been in here and yet my room remains at a constant temperature. The only means of escape I have found is to slowly compile a list of the things to do when I get out of here. The top ten simple things.

It's our one week anniversary, me and my room and it is a relationship that will extend until Monday at least. A lack of neutrophils in this morning's counts means I'm spending another weekend away from home.

Temperature is still down and, I feel, down for good. The supplements and injections keep coming and thus far there have been no really adverse reactions. My bones ache every now and then, particularly in my legs; it passes after a minute.

A burst pipe up the hill from here has cut supplies to parts of the hospital including the one tap that offers filtered water to the neutropenic. I now have expensive sterile water, ordinarily reserved for washing out wounds, that tastes exactly like the bottle from which it comes. Making it far less enjoyable and much harder to keep up my high water intake.

In the back of my mind I think I had hoped to be leaving here today so an edge of disappointment tinges the air of boredom. Come on little neutrophils get working, there's a big world out there and I would like to get back into it.

They say that cancer changes your outlook on life. I guess that premise could be broadened to include any event, illness, or disaster that highlights to you your own mortality; brings home just how little time we all have to offer; and comes as a stark demonstration as to just how fragile all of our holds on life really are.

Today I am still feeling physically fine. Temperature is still down. The recovery, it would appear, has started although there is still no light at the end of this immediate tunnel: no sign of my exit from this room.

In addition to the pills I still have to take and the antibiotic drips I am still on, a number of other ingredients have been added to my daily input. Yesterday I was given a small bottle of nutrient rich milkshake, 'Fruits of the Forest' flavour. Two or three of these turned up throughout the day and none tasted like fruits from any forest I have ever been in. This morning a strawberry one turned up and tasted exactly like the previous ones and exactly unlike strawberries. My latest was chocolate. This did taste different. Very different in fact. And if you held it in your mouth and concentrated really, really hard you could just, just imagine that it might once have been near something chocolate.

Along with some of these bottles comes a small round pot, about an inch tall and half as much wide, of a purple substance. At first I thought it was a taster of the stuff inside the bottles so just drank it. Further investigation has revealed that it is a collagen supplement. For those of you now expecting me to return from hospital with lush, pouting lips prepare to be disappointed. Applied in a skin cream, lipstick, or even eye shadow collagen is useless. A waste of money. It does nothing. Ingested however it can benefit skin growth, the formation of tendons and increased joint mobility. I assume therefore that this will help those bones now bereft of marrow to start working things out or maybe it is just to counter the terrible effects being in the same room for a week can have on ones skin. I guess the NHS are aiming for the former.

I have not invested any time in investigating just where anyone would get collagen from to add to a supplement. As it is not something derived from plants, nor something we produce in excess as humans and are want to give away I'm guessing it comes from animals. Animals that may not have openly offered it up and from parts of them that only celebrity Devonshire chefs would ever consider eating. I'm happy to down a shot of it twice a day though; it tastes a lot like fruits of the forest.

Also added to my regime is a shot of a growth hormone.

No, I am not going to come out of this ordeal taller any more than I am going to have fuller lips.

This hormone is one naturally produced in healthy bodies, often when were unwell, and in my case is aimed at encouraging any neutrophils made since chemo that are loitering around in my now roomy bone marrow to come out and start earning a living. Ordinarily new cells come out of marrow because its full of even newer ones and theres not much room. With enough room in there for them to swing a cellular cat they need a little coaxing.

Last on my list of rare, if not new, experiences, for today at least, was a shower. Enjoying its warmth for a good twenty minutes I emerged feeling human again. Taking them every morning before work it is easy to regard them as the norm and forget how great a restorative effect they have, not just on the body, but also on the mind. Without them we soon decend into a smelly heap. Our minds never cleansed, as time goes on, become more aware of how our skin feels getting dirtier, how our clothes no longer hang on our bodies without sometimes sticking, and how, with human vanity as it is, that others may perceive us as lesser people.

Having Cancer does change your outlook on life. It makes you reassess that which is important and that which is trivial. From now on any working day that starts with a shower is a good day; anything else from there on is just a bonus.

I feel like I might just be starting to climb out of the hole.

I would not say that yesterday was awful as there are plenty more in greater discomfort than me. Plenty who suffer excruciating pain. And plenty, like the woman in the room next door, who, confused and scared, cry out in the night unaware of their plight simply wanting to see a familiar face to make it all go away.

For me yesterday was quite a low day. I was riding a high temperature and, despite numerous samples, swabs and prodding, doctors could not determine its cause. So while they swapped around a few of my drugs I slept, shivered, and sweated my way through the day only getting out for ten minutes for a trip to x-ray just along the hall.

Physically I was at my worst but I had also lost my dogged self assurance that I could ride this out. As time went on I grew concerned that they had not narrowed down the source of the infection but the more tests they did the more I was concerned that they would find something else unrelated to Leukaemia.

Once all tests had been done I was given a paracetamol to reduce the fever. My temperature returned to within normal limits, and I slipped of to sleep.

Waking this morning my temperature was still low indication that there was more than mere paracetamol at work. After my first "obs" at about eight I stayed awake; watched the news; and saw the milky sun rise over rooftops freshly dusted with snow.

Breakfast was porridge followed by a CT scan of my throat and chest.

I have read, watched films, and browsed emails from work in nearly equal measure and only now, as the day reaches its end, do I feel tired. My hopes now are that my CT scan is clear of anything - either associated with or not related to Leukaemia - and that this marked improvement on yesterday is not the eye of the storm but a permanent clearing of skies. The start of the road to recovery.

A countdown to the day when I can go home and sleep in my own comfy bed.

I've hit rock bottom.

Not mentally, in that respect I am still optimistic, but my immune system, for months lowered; over a week dropping; today hit zero. This afternoon my neutrophil count was 0.03%. If they're going to get to zero then that's where they are as I type. Another day has passed in my little room and this morning, under cover of a face mask, I was allowed down the corridor to another ward where I could have a shower.

Feeling particularly icky, already unkempt hair beginning to matt into greasy clusters, I was so so grateful for the feeling of hot running water pouring over me. I had been detached from my drip and my peripheral line wrapped snugly in a number of plastic aprons to stop water ingress. The combined feelings of cleanliness AND freedom were amazing; fifteen minutes of bliss well worth the logistical effort required.

Back on my bed, clean and gleaming, I was soon hooked back up to my line. Supping a cup of tea. Eating cookies.

I find myself things to do in my room but, as a feel fine, there is not a great deal to tell: The tightening in my chest seems to get worse at night, I think it is brought on by tiredness, but has not yet developed into a full on cough. In addition to my saline drip, intravenous anti-biotics, and anti-viral pills I am now also having a blood transfusion. I'm on my second unit now and there's a third to come tomorrow.

My lovely chemo lady bounced in to say hello on her way to another room, bag of yellow chemo in hand for someone requiring treatment more time consuming than my own.

Family have visited bearing the holy grail of a T-Mobile USB broadband stick, the most painful part of my stay so far has been trying to set it up. Having got them to finally take some money I was not allowed onto my blog because "it may contain porn". The solution: to go to a T-Mobile store and prove I was over 18! Many phone calls later I got the lock removed remotely but not without great effort. My advice to anyone following in my footsteps would be to set such a service up way, way before hand to avoid any unneeded stress.

Still my T-Mobile antics filled an otherwise empty afternoon and I got to speak to some new people. Which was nice. You have to enjoy the small things in here as there is not a lot else going on; I've readopted the enthusiasm of a child for all things new.

Last night we had a fire alarm which caused a lot of bustling on the wards around me. Content to stay put unless I actually saw some smoke I felt genuine excitement at being able to watch the fire engine arrive, lights flashing, in the car park six floors below.

Hospital Radio has been everything I hoped for and a joy to listen to. Even in this enlightened digital age the audio levels are all over the shop, segways are fumbled, and the music mix is so specifically chosen that it has equal irrelevance to all who listen. Meanwhile the screen emitting the noise shows a Powerpoint presentation advertising the Patientline service featuring people grinning so inanely I had to turn it round to point the other way lest I become possessed.

Sanity will be reintroduced to my little world this evening by West Wing Series 1. I do not plan to plough through the whole box in one sitting but I hope that just observing some extended, intelligent, adult conversation will pull my mind back from the happy clappy place it feels inclined to visit. My only other option is to just let go: stick two pencils up my nose; my pants on my head; and to start saying "Wibble".

My uncharacteristically feisty end to yesterday's blog was soon brought down as, late last night, my body temperature went over 38 degrees, a sign of possible neutropenic sepsis and a sign that a visit to A&E is on the cards.

Having dug the car out of the 4 days of snow surrounding it we made a slow tentative drive over icy roads to the hospital. A&E was reasonably empty, populated by a handful of 'blokes' bleeding from various places getting mawfy wiv each uva.

Thankfully I get elevated to the top of the list and was in triage in minutes leaving the bloody, vomit ridden waiting room behind. Blood was taken and then I was found a bed in a cubical whilst waiting to be assessed. Eventually a gung ho doctor appeared whose ability to do anything involving the addition or removal of a needle was, quite literally, painfully flawed. He soon handed over these tasks to a far more competent nurse whilst concentrating his efforts on diagnosis and bossing others around.

It was a four or five hour process while blood results were waited for, x-rays were taken, in a bid to find the location of the infection. None could be found and once the blood results came back I was seen, thankfully, not to be neutropenic. That is to say I still had some immunity in my system. As a precaution is was given a paracetmol drip and a saline drip to bring the temperature down and help hydrate me. Meanwhile I sat, cubical curtain open, watching the frankly terrifying world of late night A&E cases drift past.

Alcohol induced injuries, illnesses and, in one case, psychosis all floated past my bed. At one point a teenage girl was being sectioned whilst, in front of me, a old woman who had slipped on the ice and broke her hip struggled through a haze of senility to understand why she was in pain and why her family weren't there to explain things. Doctors it would appear had been failing to get her to consent to an XRay and she'd fought them off as they tried to get her on the table.

I can see that I am now at the point in my treatment where, as expected, things are going to go downhill. It's going to be worrying and uncomfortable but for all the diffuclties I am going to enounter I'm aware that there are people out there living far more uncomfortable lives, some for all of their lives, and of all the people being treated last night I am glad I'm me.

The jab into the left arm was fine, the one into the right sent an odd sensation down my forearm. Not pain as such but oddly uncomfortable. It soon passed but clearly, in that arm at least, the drugs were flowing into my system quickly. Theme of today has been tiredness.

Tiredness and snow.

Both feature highly amongst the endless glasses of water and pill popping.

I was slightly concerned that my drugs, delivered to the hospital every day from North London, might not make it through the snow as the country crumbled under a mild dusting of seasonally expected frosting. Either that or it would be just me and the drugs in an empty room bereft of someone to administer them. Happily this was not the case and whilst some of the other, considerably older, visitors to my particular ward had stayed at home, putting off transfusions for another day when they were less likely to suffer a broken hip skating across the hospital car park, both my drugs and the nurse to administer them were present.

The Haematology Day Unit is a particularly serene place in the heart of an otherwise bustling section of the hospital. A sixth floor room, nestled between two wards, with full height windows looking out over the local town and on to Richmond Park. Here, as doctors as nurses scuttle passed outside, the inhabitants merrily discuss the lunch menu, the inclement weather, and how posh it they felt when Camp Coffee was introduced during the war to plug the gap in place of dwindling tea supplies.

Without doubt I am half the age of anyone else attending.

Run with efficiency by an always cheery nurse everyone present gets their drips, plasma, and drugs administered in what ever way needed. Gaps in the drip changing schedule and trips to the pharmacy are filled with a tea round or two. Come Friday I'm tempted to take in some biscuits to top off the pleasant air and fill any gaps left by the often lack lustre offerings from the hospital kitchen. Whilst my visits are quick some of my fellow inhabitants are there for the day, I'm sure a Custard Cream or two will help them through.

With my injections done and a cup of coffee had I headed back home through the snow. There are still no ill effects to speak of aside from the arm thing and a headache above my right eye just after my jab. It felt like the brain freeze that, ordinarily, can only be achieved my sucking too hard on a McDonald's milk shake. It soon subsided and is probably not related to the chemotherapy at all. I'm at the point now where I am mentally on the lookout for every ache, pain, twitch and itch that might be the start of something more severe.

As I write more snow is forecast for tomorrow but thankfully my drugs for the rest of the week have already been delivered. There's nothing to stop me getting to the hospital and the nurse indicated a dogged determination not to let her patients down so all being well my therapy will not be snowed off. Tomorrow is when my neutrophils should really start to drop. Bring on Day Four!

Day Two is pretty much over and I still feel fine. Both of my hopes from
yesterday came to fruition with a lovely clear, albeit frosty, morning
AND FedEx delivering my blood to NIH on time. It was a slow walk up to
the hospital for no other reason that my better half is now 7 months
pregnant. The distance is not great but we had to leave home with enough
time for a slow waddle to the other side of town.

Once there the process was simple: a jab into each arm and the deed was
done. Both arms ached for ten minutes or so after the injections but it soon subsided and after a coffee we meandered back home. Encamped on the sofa in the warm I sketched out my drug timetable to keep track of the variety of pills I now need to pop each day. With my immune system set to take a serious dip in a day or two I need to medically kill off any possible infections lest I end up in A&E.

Currently in my 'bag of meds' I have:

Aciclovir - A general anti-viral drug aimed at cold sores, shingles,
chickenpox, Bell's palsy, and a lovely collection of various types of
herpes. Any of which I could certainly do without. One pill to be taken
at regular intervals four times a day, every day.

Cotrimoxazone - A general anti-biotic aimed at Listeria, Traveller's
Diarrhea, and load of things I've never heard of ending in '...osis'.
One to be taken three times a day although only on Monday's, Wednesdays,
and Fridays. Never before have I ever had a pill that only works
part-time.

Domperidone - Sounding a lot like a top end champagne it is nowhere near
as enjoyable. It is an anti-nausea pill two of which can be taken up to three
times a day that ironically tastes absolutely foul. Nauseating in fact.

I'm holding off on the Domperidone until sickness sets in rather than
take a drug I do not need; I think there's enough of a chemistry set
rattling around in me for now.

The only other thing I need to take is water and lots of it. Whilst my
liver is working overtime to break down the cocktail of drugs I'm
ingesting, my kidneys need as much help as possible to flush out the
Hairy Cells that will soon be dying off, hopefully in great numbers. To
offer some assistance I need to drink, I'm told, six pints of water per
day.

This I am managing but I think I am beginning to slosh when I walk. I
have never been quite so hydrated or had to visit the loo quite so
regularly. If frequent peeing is all I have to contend with throughout
this treatment then frankly I'll have got off quite lightly.

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.

A new year, a new decade. 2010 was welcomed in a sedate manner: the two of us clinking glasses of water whilst watching the various firework displays being launched from neighboring gardens.

The week since Christmas has been a quiet affair, recovering from the excesses of food and drink consumed. The annual mid-winter feasting followed by the traditional detox, lots of fruit, vegetables and water this week as I try and ready myself for next week's events.

There is a heightened sense of nervousness in the house at the moment. Most days come and go quite normally but nights pass in uneasy dreams. Although not working I still set an alarm so that I can make the most of each day. I may not do much but at least I am up; about; awake.

Time is spent readying the flat for the new arrival due in March. Work that I know I will not be able to do in January and whilst I hope to be back on my feet by February that short month will be over before we know it and suddenly a crying, kicking, poo factory will be wanting somewhere to sleep. The ‘baby stuff’ is already being put to good use, a sterilizing bucket sits in the kitchen with cutlery, mugs, etc. for me to use once I have no immune system and we’re readying the antibacterial wipes to attack door knobs, light switches, keyboards and mice.

Planning for and talking about the time post-Chemo is the only way to stop ones mind from dwelling on the worst of the possible outcomes. We’re in an emotional quicksand at the moment: to keep moving forward, looking at the future is the only way through. To stop and dwell on my plight will just cause us to sink, the going will be harder and the outcome less bright. Excitingly most sentences start with the phrase “Next time we do this there’ll be a little one with us!”

Christmas gifts of books and CD's have been readied in the lounge. A pile for me to work through whilst I rest up praying that tiredness and nausea is all I have to contend with. I’m grateful for the glut of classic films on at this time of year. Battle of the Bulge being the recent highlight whilst I cupped endless mugs of tea, rain lashing against the window outside. I’ve also compiled a collection of old Western’s to see me through the days when I cannot go out. A happy reminder of ice cold Sunday afternoons at my grandmothers house when I was growing up. No heating, huddled around a tiny fire, watching cowboys on the telly whilst we ate jam tarts.

I had my final pre-chemo consultation yesterday. It was a bitterly cold yet thoroughly refreshing walk up to the hospital and then the usual routine of bloodletting and people watching in the waiting room. A good book is essential as appointment times seem to have a natural drift to them and are dependent more on the backlog of bloods in the lab than the time you report for duty. My current treatise is the thoroughly relevant “Bad Science” by Ben Goldacre and I highly recommend it to anyone, Leukaemia sufferer or not.

11:30 is the time it will start, or thereabouts once forms have been filled in and, no doubt, more blood taken. I fully intend to continue this blog as the treatment progresses but it is highly likely, I am told, that I will be admitted to hospital at some point so do not take an apparent cessation of writing to mean the worse. It is more likely that I am either very tired or failing to get comfy in a hospital bed and unable to commit my thoughts to the world wide web.

Happy New Year all; it’s going to be an interesting one.

The date has been set. After what seems like an eternity of waiting I now know when my Chemotherapy will start. Until now, whilst I knew what lay ahead, it always seemed so distant but every other landmark event that originally stood in the way has pretty much passed and only now have I started to fully comprehend the next step.

I have got well and truly into the swing of working from home and the initial shock of diagnosis is a distant memory. I’ve been eating well, taking my vitamins, avoiding sick people and although it’s been frustratingly dull at times it’s not an intolerable way to live; if needed I could certainly carry on this way.

Hairy Cell Leukaemia progresses slowly but cannot be left to go unchecked forever so having spent a few months in effective retreat it’s time to start walking the path back to the real world and it could be a rocky journey.

The Consultant dealing with my case is very positive about the outcome of my treatment; the handful of other sufferers I have found online are all doing well post-Chemo, some are in remission; and friends and family are being very supportive. I have my low moments but I know that I can make it. I know that I can beat this thing. That said I am not ashamed to admit that I’m more than a little scared about what is to come.

I have spent life in pretty good health and aside from surgery to correct a deviated septum a few years ago I have never spent any time in hospital. I have never broken anything; I have never been seriously ill. Personally I find that it is much easy to deal with difficult times in your life when you have already been through something similar whether it is overcoming physical pain, emotional trauma, or dealing with difficult situations but for this I have no basis for comparison. I haven’t had any form of rehearsal, and therein lies the fear.

It is a fear that needs to be acknowledged and dealt with though as I have no choice. There is no other way. I remember in an interview some years ago illusionist, endurance artist and general weirdo David Blaine described that he dealt with plunging himself into a tank of ice cold water as just being something he had to accept as the next step in his life no matter how painful or uncomfortable. That is, I think, the only way I can see myself getting through this from a mental standpoint: accept the inevitable; learn from the discomfort; and grow from the experience.

After all what doesn’t kill you, serves to make you stronger.

Unable to go out much, due to a combination of my ongoing Crowd Avoidance Scheme and thoroughly inclement weather, a lot of this year’s Christmas shopping has been done online. Packages have been arriving almost daily from Amazon, Play, and a whole host of other internet shopping outlets. All have been eagerly awaited by my wife who relishes in the process of wrapping presents almost as much as she does in opening them.

Today’s delivery isn’t much of a Christmas present but was one that I have been looking forward to and was beginning to get concerned that it would not arrive in time. The delivery contained 9 empty blood collection tubes and now it was here I had less than a day to fill the tubes and “return to sender”.

A research team at the National Institute of Health in Maryland are conducting research into current treatments for Hairy Cell Leukaemia with a view to increasing their effectiveness, extending remission times, and possibly taking steps toward curing the disease. For any medical research to be worthwhile the number of subjects studied needs to be as large as possible and this is clearly a bit of a bugger for those studying rare diseases whose subjects may be few and far between.

Having contacted the doctor running the study, forms were filled in and arrangements made for blood to be taken here that could then be tested there. Not an easy task as it has meant coordinating the availability of someone to take the blood in my local NHS hospital in sequence with the work of another Phlebotomist in the US who needs to do more tests two days later once Federal Express have shipped the tubes the five thousand, nine hundred and three miles between the two.

The first half of this mission has been successfully completed although not without undue trials in establishing just what paperwork you need for shipping your own blood around the world.

That and the mild sting in the arm induced by filling all nine tubes is all behind me now and I hope that, in the same way that a group of my colleagues’ blood donations a few months ago have helped people in my position start on the road to recovery, my relatively small donation today can help in the quest for me, and the handful of other sufferers around the world, to live completely normal lives.

Days like today are perfect for brisk walks. Brisk walks being the only exercise I am allowed at the moment. My eagerness to go to the gym and build up my stamina ahead of my impending therapy was stifled by warnings from my Consultant that right now I’d be putting to much strain on a system barely coping with getting the right amount of oxygen around and if I were to trip and fall I’d risk rupturing my spleen and worsening my plight.

We’ve had a lot of rain of late so days like today are to be enjoyed. Cold crisp air, utterly fresh, blowing off the river. Walking arm in arm with my wife as we stroll along a line of trees casting their long winter shadows on the ground. The weak sun glinting through leafless branches as it arches low in the sky.

With each deep breath I feel the cold air fill my lungs and imagine it going further, coursing deep into my body. Whistling through my bones, whipping up small tornados in isolated capillaries. Blowing all the hairy cells along in its path like autumn leaves being pushed along the ground and as I exhale all the hairy cells are conjured into a spinning cyclone in my core turning to dust as they pass my lips into the glare of the sun.

This is a particularly beautiful route to walk at any time of the year but particularly now, when it’s dry, I make a point of getting out. Not that I’ve needed any excuse to get out over the last few days. On Thursday, the weather similar to today, my Mum and I walked up to the hospital for my three weekly check up.

My blood counts are steady, still no increase in the white ones and my recent transfusion has given my red cells a much a needed boost. All being well that will be the last transfusion I need for a long time. Not that I mind them, I have a lot of other reading I could do with catching up on, but I just long to be normal.

On Friday I had a proper day off from work but the lay in I had hoped for was not to be. Once again I was of up to the hospital but this time with my wife and the bump. It was time for her to be the centre of attention and it’s a baton I am happy to hand over. All is well, the baby is growing as she should and once again we got to listen to her heartbeat. That’s actually what we call her, “Heartbeat” as on the very first scan, after only two weeks, that was all there was to see. Faintly beating in a gulf of space.

Feeling I’d seen the best part of the maternity visit I left my wife to watch the doctor repeatedly fail to log into his computer - it didn’t have to take two of us - whilst I walked to the other side of town for another medical pit stop: my second Swine Flu jab. Delivered with such efficiency I didn’t even get to sit down and was actually leaving the surgery ten minutes before the start of my appointment.

It’s now just less than a month before I am likely to start my treatment. I have my next hospital appointment on New Years Eve and, barring any upturn in the swine flu figures, the order will be placed for my Cladrabine. The drug that I’m hoping will whisk through my body, searching every nook and cranny where the hairy cells hide and on finding them shine so cold and bright that they all turn to dust.

Last week I had another blood transfusion and aside from a break to listen to Jacqueline du Pre’s incredible 1965 performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto I spent the entire six hours of the process reading a book on Business Continuity Planning.

Whilst to most, if not all, I’m sure this sounds like one of the dullest ways to spend any time at all I’d argue that it is simply a matter of making the best use of all time available. With no access to phones or the internet I see the blood transfusion room as a pleasant sanctuary away from the world rather than a restrictive cage. This doesn’t mean though that I can’t engage in valuable employment. The book in question has been sitting on my desk for months and whilst I have had every intention to read it other work just always seems to get in the way. Eventually though even those tasks on the back burner need to be dealt with one way or another.

Engulfing myself in how and what a business can do protect itself from all manner of disasters that may befall it I was stuck with a number of parallels between the hypothetical business scenarios I was reading and my very own very real state of affairs.

Business Continuity Planning, and those reading this whom I work with are going to hear this phrase a lot in the coming months, is all about preparing an organisation so that if disaster strikes, in one form or another, everyone knows what to do and the business can continue to function and ultimately continue to make money. Most companies without such a plan in place simply crumble in the months following the disaster after all involved have either run around like headless chickens for a few weeks until they ran out of money or simply abandoned the venture completely.

I’m not suggesting that anyone prepare and document ahead of time a set of plans to follow should a crisis erupt in their lives. To do so would be a waste of time best spent doing pretty much anything else you can think of. The connecting theme here is that of an absolute need for continuity in the face of disaster whether it happens in business or our personal lives.

If you’ve just come to this blog having been very recently diagnosed then I know how you feel. Your life, however old or young you are, has just crumbled around you and you simply cannot see a future. You are absolutely desperate for none of this to be true; casting your mind back to find a way you may have changed this and looking forward to moments you’re dreamt about but now fear you may never actually see.

What is important now is finding continuity, making a plan. The past is unchangeable; from it you should take only lessons and leave all regrets. There is a future. But it is a future that may require change and adaptation, possibly only for the short term, but you do need to continue, you cannot lose focus, you cannot give up. Ignore the resources you can no longer use or the things you can no longer do. Develop, enhance, and embrace that which you can do and those who you can depend on. Work towards a new future, but importantly, find enjoyment and positivity in what is happening in the now. Every day alive should be spent living, truly living.

An old friend of mine who is suffering from Chronic Kidney Disease said to me recently that “Life is everything” and for me that really rang true. You cannot let disease or disaster mar your passions or the ability to delight in the simple things in life.

Business need not end with disaster and living need not end with diagnosis. Both can continue.

A glass of red wine. To celebrate.

It won’t cure me but it will help mark a small success of sorts. This afternoon saw another blood letting session followed by a rundown of the results with my Consultant. Work has occupied my mind over the past weeks but yesterday evening I was noticeably anxious. It’s not that there is anything to fear. There’s no pain; no discomfort. But in getting on with life sometimes I forget where I am.

Often normality begins to seep into my extraordinary world. I forget. A hospital day is a reminder of how things are and what my reality is.

Three weeks ago, at the last meeting, my red blood cells and haemoglobin had stayed steady but my whites were on the increase. Were the increase to continue its possible that my chemotherapy would have been brought forward as such I’ve been marking time this week wondering if the run up to Christmas was going to be very different this year.

After a while in the waiting room, catching up on last month’s issue of The Word, the results were in. The meeting was quick and to the point and pretty much standard procedure. I report on me, then I get a report on my blood.

For me I still feel fine, if I hadn’t been to the doctor a few months ago I still may not know. My temperature is level. No fever, rashes, infections. I haven’t had a night sweat since the week I had my transfusion. The only telling sign of my disorder is that my spleen aches if I eat to much, squeezed against my ribs by my stomach, but its like a dull stitch. In an ordinary world I would have put it down to a pulled muscle from sitting awkwardly all day rather than that second (possible third) helping of dinner I just couldn’t resist. My appetite has certainly NOT been affected.

And so to the bloods. My red cells are holding steady, not giving up space to those hairy bastards. The hairies themselves are also holding level. This is very good news. The only count that’s down is my haemoglobin, it’s job is to bind oxygen to the red cells and dish it out as they float around my body.

So I’m definitely not getting some pre-Christmas chemo. What I am going to get is another blood transfusion. Time to top up the iPod ahead of next week. By rights I should be flying to Latvia to close off a project I’ve been working on all year but instead of taking that flight I’ll spend the day sitting in a chair staring out over a Day Ward. It will be less stressful though and it’s an excuse to get out but sometimes I miss being part of the action. Being normal.

Maybe my morning dose of beetroot juice is doing something, or maybe its the meditation, maybe its none of these or both of them combined. Whatever the reason my hairy cells have ceased the expansion of their empire for now and thats the best I can hope for at the moment so I’m enjoying a glass of red wine to celebrate. No matter what you think you’ve read though it really isn’t a cure.