Getting flushed!

 

I hope you will excuse the inevitable ads that will come up with this little clip from 'Men in Black 2' when our heroes leave the secret headquarters by a watery route. This was a favourite scene from the film, and it suits my purpose well.

Clip from MiB2

I have decided to use Flushed  to describe what my medical team will do just before I have my Stem Cell Transplant (SCT) . The idea of the SCT is that you pretty much clear my bone marrows of any cells whatsoever. So along with the pesky mutating plasma cells, as I understand it, all the others get flushed out too: hemoglobin, white cells, T-cells, platelets, the lot. It sounds like a proper bone enema.

Without doing this, there is the risk that there will be still plenty of surviving cancer cells around to restart their game. They do eventually, in all cases, because you can't dig out the last pesky holdover, hiding like Osama Bin Laden in some little cave in my bones. But you can have a damn good go, so the Flush is completely OK with me.

There will be some collateral. I will likely lose some hair, a fair chance of losing all of it, and it plays hell with cells in your mouth, gut and other places. But it is a fair trade for time on your feet instead of on your back. 

As far as I know, when I go in for the preparation that is rather euphemistically known as 'conditioning' they first put in a big ' central line' in my neck, which will allow all incoming and outgoing liquids to pass without me needing more cannulas.

So when I message that the Flush is on, you will know just what I mean. And wish me luck. 

And after the big flush, there is a carefully-planned recovery stage. They will keep me barrier-nursed for about three weeks while my blood cells start to regenerate, and then over the next three to six months they will check to see that all is going in the right direction.

And then, finally, because the Flush will have cleared out all memory my blood ever had, I will need to get all my childhood vaccinations re-done, one needle at a time. I have to confess that I take a child's spoddish interest in all the detail of the treatments, even though they are going to do it to me. I was always a sucker for the 'How it works' part of the comic or book, and from an early age would redraw the excavators and and diggers that were in the trade magazines that my father brought home from his job at the tyre remoulding works.

So knowing what they are doing, and why, kind of makes it better for me. It might be rough, but I can see the purpose behind it, and like a good mechanic or builder, the doctors use all their accumulated skill, experience and a little guesswork to get the best outcome possible. I know that I cannot expect the perfect outcome here, but I am happy to know that it will not be for want of trying from the doctors and medical staff.