Day +62 & morning of +63

Hi all, the last couple of days have been horrendous and it started to get bad on Tuesday night. Because I was heading off on Wednesday to Holland I need to get as much of my Wednesday drugs administered on Tuesday night along with my usual night drugs and this took a long time. To add to this my palates and blood count dropped and I ended up having two palates transfusions and one blood transfusion. Having all of these, along with my bouts of toileting meant that Dad and I were up the full night. We left Newcastle General Hospital at 8:00 in an ambulance for the airport. The drive only took about 15 mins as we ‘blue lighted’ all the way. However we need not have rushed as the airport was surrounded in fog. You remember the plane I went to Holland the last time, well this time it was a similar one, but had leather seats and looked much cooler, but it was still quite small. Small planes don’t have the same equipment as big planes and we had to wait till the fog cleared enough and that took 3 hours. The flight to Amsterdam took 1 hour and 10 mins. Jane, the paramedic who travels with us, who is brilliant and knows loads about flying, arranged that the plane would have sandwiches and drinks that I was allowed, as the last time I couldn’t eat anything. So this made the flight a little better, also this time I didn’t lie in the bed, I set on one of those leather seats and was able to have a better view of the sky. When we landed the weather was lovely, it was sunny and warm, very different from the fog and cold we left behind. There was another ambulance and a medical car waiting on the runway for us – it was the same driver as the last time. We had to drive to Leiden, which is about 50KM from Amsterdam, again we ‘blue lighted it’. Dad followed behind in the medical car and he said it was like being in a racing car, very fast and quite scary. Anyway we got to the hospital in Leiden in about 15 or so minutes. Everybody was waiting for us, the cells were already defrosting. The same nurse and doctor came to check me out, as well as one of the ‘Boss’s’ friends a doctor who knows Prof Cant very well and works in Holland. I had my transfusion and it went very well, while the transfusion was going in I had some Dutch apple juice and some ice cream, both of which were yummie. You’ll never guess how many stem cells were in my transfusion, well there were 60,000,000 stem cells, all running around trying to find the right place to help out, pretty cool. After that we said good bye to the doctors and nurses and headed back to Amsterdam airport. Now it started to get difficult. I was getting very tired and exhausted and I just wanted to be back in my bed. On the plane back we found out that Newcastle was fogged in again and we had to divert to Carlie, which is on the west coast of England, remember Newcastle is on the east cost. The decent was horrible, with loads of clouds which made it very bumpy and quite horrible, but we got down and I wasn’t the only person feeling unwell. Then we had to wait for another ambulance to come from Carlie to take us back to Newcastle. I got back to my room at about 20:00, wrecked, tired, drained and feeling horrible. Mum was waiting for me and I was delighted to see her. The girls on the ward had also been into my room while I was away and the room was spotless and my bed was made with nice clean clothes. I think I was just wrecked but my night was crap. I was up one the hour and many times twice in the hour; it was just so so horrible. My blood pressure dropped and I had a lot of nurses and doctors in through the night. I now really really need to sleep which is what I hope I can do today. So it’s not nite nite this time, but good morning from Newcastle. Love Naoise.