Do we know those people?

T+438

I find it quite bizarre that it’s been almost 500 days since Rufus donated his cells to Herb. I guess that watching it again on the television made it feel like yesterday. Things have been ticking along nicely since school ended for summer and we are all determined to make the most of the holidays whatever the weather.

On Wednesday last week we had a check up appointment at GOSH. This was our first appointment since the programme aired and was the day after episode 2 was transmitted. To be honest we joked on the way to London about Herb being a celebrity but I don’t think we had any idea what things would be like when we arrived!

First of all we were greeted by a large poster of myself and Herbie at the entrance to the hospital! Although we knew it was there (as a friend had sent us a picture)  it was still surreal to see it!

 

Herb, cheeky as ever, suggested he should cover my face as he’d done most of the hard work in transplant! Finally he agreed to pose with me too!  As we left the entrance we were greeted by numerous people (none of which we knew) who told us that they had watched the programme and which bits they had enjoyed and also how great it was to see Herbie looking so well. Herb enjoyed a few high fives with strangers and seemed to love the limelight.

Once in Safari Outpatients we were greeted by Louise on reception who asked Herb for his autograph, she was also in the programme so we asked for hers too! 😂 We also bumped into some BMT friends and Herb enjoyed some table football and iPad time with Ryan (who celebrated a year since his transplant this week.

One strange thing about going through transplant is that you meet lots of BMT parents and you see their children through the windows of the rooms as you walk through the wards (especially in Robin Ward as you go into Fox Ward daily too to the BMT kitchen and milk room) and you hear daily updates about them from their mums and dads but the children don’t ever meet as they are isolated from each other! I used to tell Herbie about the other children every day. He would often ask how Jacob, & Seren were or whether Mason was having a bath when I went to get our bedsheets or if I knew which game Sebastien was playing on his console. He would ask Helen, his teacher, w hat Milan was learning with her and ask me if he was building Lego. This curiosity about others who have had or are having BMTs continues. I often update him on his BMT buddies, he knows Jacob is starting Secondary school in September, that Seren is doing well  and that Sebastien lost weight like him and needed supplements. He feels sad for baby Jack (as Herb calls him)  when I say he’s back in GOsh. He’s cried about Mason and more recently over Milan and he’s shown a little bit of the green eyed monster when he learnt that Ryan had had his lines removed. It’s a strange thing being part of the BMT family. So for Herb to get to see Ryan and chat was lovely.

As we waited for our turn to see Waseem we saw many of Herb’s BMT consultants (Dr Robert Chiesa and Dr Juliana Silva ) and BMT nurses and they came to chat and say well done on the programme which was lovely. A lovely couple chatted to us, they were there with their young daughter. It seemed that they had watched us in the programme too. They thanked us for doing it and said it had been helpful to them as they were going to transplant too and were, understandably, worried. Dan told them about this blog, I hope they found it and wish them all the luck in the world.

Herb was weighed and had his height (114.8cm)  and BP (105/69) done. His weight had dropped again , 9 weeks ago he weighed 24kg (although it was really 23.6kg without his hoodie but Jinhua let us put the hoodie back on ) , this time he was 23.4kg. The day before we had seen a dietician at home at the request of Waseem.  We discussed what Herbie ate and she plotted his height and weight. Her weight chart showed that he was just shy of the 75th centile and she felt he wouldn’t be able to gain the weight that GOSH wanted him to as boys don’t put much weight on at this age and if he did it wouldn’t be rapidly. She had sent this information to Waseem. He made it clear that he was still worried about the rapid drop in weight and the fact that he was still losing. However, he also decided that there was a risk in doing an endoscopy to check for GVHD & a risk in dropping steroids so we agreed to tentatively drop the steroid and watch carefully. The drop would be from 5mls daily to 4mls for two weeks. If this was tolerated we would drop to 3mls for another two weeks and should that be ok he would hold the steroid at 3ml and begin to wean ciclosporin again. We felt these were sensible steps. The last CD4 count was 80 which is very low for a year post sibling transplant even with steroid and ciclosporin still in place. However Waseem reassured us that these are ‘just numbers’ and that the fact he’s been at school and stayed well etc was a good thing. He felt that his thymus was ‘feeling rather insulted’ by the chemo, micabacterial infection and meds but that it would be ok it just takes time. We do want his CD4 count back up before the winter though to protect him. Bloods were taken to see what was happening with his counts now. Results should come next week. Fingers crossed.

We left outpatients and headed to Safari Daycare to get the bloods done. People smiled at us and we’re very friendly. I saw Keano (also featured in the programme) and his mum in one of the isolation rooms. Professor Persis Amrolia stopped to chat to us about the programme, asking Herb for his autograph and saying he thought it was a good insight. I felt quite pleased that he cited certain things we had said as ‘insightful’. He is such a lovely man.

Then it was time to head to Robin Ward in the hope of seeing a few familiar faces. Herbie was very hopeful that Rehka, Amy or Ella would be there and he would have loved to have seen Maxine or Lucinda or Holly or any of his regular nurses/HCAs. We chatted to Nikki and then the nurses working popped out to see him, familiar faces and all so happy to see him. Sadly Rehka had worked the night shift and no Amy or Ella but he enjoyed catching up.

I also got to catch up with Sharon, Zak’s mum. She is currently in Fox Ward with Zak as he is having his BMT (10 days post transplant as I type) . Herb got fed up of the adult chat though and left the ward and ran to the lifts! So it was hop back to The Lagoon and then home.

So the steroids are currently dropped to 4mg daily and we are watching carefully. Herbie is enjoying the start of the long summer break. We created Summer’s Bucket List. A list of things we all wanted to do before summer left. It’s been such fun so far, after the last two summers off illness and hospital admissions we have everything crossed that 2015 might be better…it’s starting well! I’ll leave you with some of the things we’ve done so far and a quote.

” Aah, summer – that long anticipated stretch of lazy, lingering days, free of responsibility and rife with possibility ”