Transplant Day -3...the best day so far

Evening Bloggers!!

How are we all this evening?

Probably one of our best days here today at The Royal Manchester Children's Hospital since we arrived for our first visit just over a month ago. Hopefully its our last day of chemo tomorrow and we reach another milestone in this long journey...and it does feel like a long time sometimes when we think back to our days here with Eleanor, seeing all the doctors who first joined us and are continuing their incredible work, along with the young doctors completing their placements and student nurses qualifying, some getting married and even having children!! Wow now that is a lot to think about.

Phoebe has done well again today and the change in her has been remarkable as we see the steroids now wearing off, she hasn't had as much to eat today and it has been strange seeing her eating rather more slowly than in recent weeks!! It feels like we have the old Phoebe back!! Treatment as gone well today and its our final day of chemotherapy tomorrow before her transplant on Friday.

Our donor has been very much in our thoughts as she will now be receiving her treatment of injections before donating on Thursday. It will be a couple of years again before she will be able to read this but we can say now to you, that you are very much in our thoughts and prayers and well... you can imagine there are no words that can describe how we feel inside, without sobbing uncontrollably! This precious gift you have given is a future for our amazing girl and a future for us as a family, a gift of life and that is something that is unmeasurable, not just once but twice. We look forward to the day when we can meet and sit with Phoebe and yourself and get to know each other a little more although...on a soul level, we may know you well already!! xxx

One of our friends, Pauline from our playgroup 'Circle Tots' has been texting me over the past month and updating us with the progress from her daughter Karen, who has contacted The Anthony Nolan Trust since hearing about Phoebe's story and decided to become a donor. That's absolutely fantastic news, well done Karen!! On the last update, Karen had given blood and a sample sent to be tested to see if she will be eligible for donation. The odds are quite high in being chosen as a match but if you are one of the lucky ones, this gift is priceless. My brother and his partner, Lisa have also taken this step too, well done guys!! xx

As we are focusing on different aspects of this journey with Phoebe, becoming a donor was definitely on our list. When we have discussions with our specialist nurse Jo Page, we were initially surprised to find that stem cell collection from the donor has dramatically changed from how it used to be taken. In most cases now, it has moved from the old stereotypical painful procedure to simply having a course of injections for the week prior to your stem cell donation. This brings all your stem cells out in the main blood system. A donor will have blood taken from one arm, have it filtered for the stem cells and then this is transfered back into the other arm. When Ade or I start to explain this to people, there is a huge response from people who are not aware of this and the reaction is almost always surprise that if more people knew, it could help to find more donors...what do you think?, do you think you could go through this to save another persons life? Take a look at the website, go on...you never know you could be the lucky one to be chosen. Lets see how many take that first step, keep us posted everyone xxx www.anthonynolan.org

And, this leads on very nicely to our final piece tonight on our Three Peaks Challenge. You may remember, a group of us decided to take on this well known challenge of completing the Three Peaks in 24 hours for The Anthony Nolan Trust. The date was set for the weekend of 17th and 18th of July 2010. We had Jonathan, Rob Sproston, Bert and Rob Wynn joining Ade and I for this feat ..obviously, it was the guys walking and Ade and I were the nominated drivers...yeh yeh...I can hear you all giggling!!! Unfortunately, due to Phoebe being admitted urgently, we all decided to postpone this until next year. We have had a tremendous response from everyone making donations on our Just Giving Page - www.justgiving.com/threepeaksjuly.

Thank you to everyone who have made very generous donations, we have also received cash from some of you guys, especially from our members and guests at the Tollgate. We will be collecting this altogether and adding this to the already incredible total of £950.00 so far.

Wow, that's fantastic thank you so very very much.

We have today's chosen artwork from Molly, at this moment, I am having trouble uploading today's pics again, we will show this on tomorrow's blog Molly, sorry, will have a chat to Uncle Ade again and see if he can fix it!!

Special mention tonight for one of our nurses, Taz, she is lovely bless her and has just joined us on the blog giving us great feedback, glad you are enjoying it, thanks hun, very much appreciated.

Kelly and Craig who were married on Saturday...Congratulations!! Sorry that we couldn't be with you but will definitely celebrate and have a glass of bubbly with you when we return home xxx

Tomorrow we are planning a day by the window people watching and have devised a little chart to work with, Phoebe will be decorating it in the morning and we will post our findings tomorrow for you!!!

Thank you Cheryl, for making this stay in Manchester just that bit easier xxx

So for now, thanks for joining us once again and we look forward in bringing you the next installment tomorrow.

Rest easy now...
Much love
Lynn, Ade, Phoebe and Spirit Eleanor xxxx