Transplant Day +13...A little time out...

Hi Folks,

Hope you are all well this evening.

Another great day here and we started this morning with 'Top Marks' from Rob during his ward round as we discussed the bloods. We are continuing to see a steady growth in the number of cells developing and this is good sign we are definitely in the right direction. Rob is thrilled Phoebe is doing well and hopes to see us heading home next week maybe. We will be in a semi-isolation status for the next six months following discharge and this is the next big step in our road to recovery.

Phoebe's appetite has been rather slow today with some sickness, we plough on with continued optimism whilst looking back to her previous transplant, Phoebe's appetite will return to normal...especially when she has her first scent of Mum and Dad's sunday lunch...how can it not!! Luckily, we don't have the norovirus making its annual appearance at the moment and I think this will make a huge difference with Phoebe's recovery.

Layla our teacher visited again and today's lesson focused on listening, Phoebe enjoyed some interesting exercises with pictures and listening to sounds on the laptop...she couldn't get enough of them and kept asking for more!! Layla is very pleased with her and its lovely to hear them chatting, she is very comfortable with Layla and this brings out her cheeky confidence.

Phoebe has had a great visit from the folks today and kept them very much entertained with singing, painting and playing hide and seek...ironically there are quite a few places to hide in this room!!

Whilst the troops were here today, they enjoyed some quality time with Phoebe whilst I enjoyed a wonderful visit from our dear friend Manju who travelled up from Birmingham. We took a stroll out and found a great little restaurant serving local legendary falafal...sure we will be taking a few visits there before we are discharged home. It was great to see you and catch up again Manju, thanks also for your wonderful gifts, Phoebe has gone to sleep still covered in sticky diamonds!!!....thrilled everything is working out with your new dental practice...so guys, if you need an excellent dentist, give Manju a call!! www.stratforddental.co.uk

Ade also had some time out today with our good friend David Brownsword, David and his family are avid followers of the blog. Today they enjoyed lunch at an Italian restaurant in town called Rosso which is owned by footballer Rio Ferdinand and by all accounts was a good meal! Thanks David, I know Ade really enjoyed your company, hope you, Mel and the boys are well. We look forward to catching up when we get back into the swing of normal everyday life...feels like its been years!!! www.rossorestaurants.com

Before heading back to the ward today, I popped into the Whitworth Museum in Manchester to get a card for our donor, just wanted to keep her up to date with progress even though we are unable to tell each other any personal details. We received a card from her last week and its amazing, feel like I already know her and our writing is very similar..its ironic!! It will be a further two years before we will be able reveal further details about ourselves...can you imagine what its going to feel like when we meet??
One of the reasons for writing the blog apart from keeping everyone up to date with Phoebe's progress, is to be able to present our donor with a book containing all the recorded entries on the blog along with pictures detailing Phoebe's Journey...and if any of our bloggers out there would like to contribute to this in any way that would be wonderful, whether it is a picture or note...I'll leave it with you to think about..

Later this evening we received a visit from the volunteers of Radio Lollipop, it was lovely meeting Jo and Val and thanks for the pictures for Phoebe and wordsearch for me!! Thanks for giving your free time to come around and chat, it was greatly appreciated xxxx www.radiolollipop.org

Today's art has been sent in by Isaac who is the son of a great and treasured friend Helen, he does have an array of talents and is currently learning the guitar, we look forward to receiving tickets to his first gig!! Thanks Isacc, great picture xxxx

Rest well and catch you again tomorrow for another installment on the blog.



Much Love
Lynn, Ade, Phoebe and Spirit Eleanor xxxx