I had my appointment at the Clatterbridge Hospital today. It isn’t too far away from me, only about 20 minutes drive, if that. It’s been a lovely day, parked up in the car park and took a slow walk over to the Main entrance, which turned out not to be the main entrance of where I wanted to be. After another walk down the road to another main entrance; it’s a big complex with lots of building, I finally found it.
The people really nice and I was shown to the waiting room where I waited to see the Doctor. She went through the consent forms for the Radio therapy, which I had to sign and then off I went to the planning department.
This is the first time that will have Radio therapy, my last transplant only consisted of Chemo Therapy. I have a test radio therapy on Monday prior to going into hospital for my little holiday. Before that though they have to take various measurement and an MRI scan.
So after getting undressed apart from my underpants, they get you to lie on the bed and take lots of measurements while hugging a pillow with your arms across it that you can’t move. They space out your legs so they are the same distance as your hips and pull you pant nearly off so that they can do accurate measurement, at least that’s the reason the nurse told me! There were about 6 people in the room with me lying on the bed virtually naked. It’s a good job I don’t get embarrassed easily. Not that I think my sexy body would have overwhelmed them with lust somehow!
Once they have everything set up prior to the scan, they mark the position using pen at the top of each leg. Once they are satisfied that everything is correct they make a permanent mark either side, where the pen marks were they tattoo a small dot.
So after 45 years of not having a tattoo, I finally got one. Once I come out of this, I might go and celebrate and get the dot turned into a huge dragon that covers my body …. errrr ok maybe not, but I would consider having a tattoo, not sure what or where or even why really… maybe because I can is a good enough excuse.
It’s a shame we can’t go back in time and archive the library of Alexandria before they were destroyed. So much information lost.
However as we all know there is so much information in that there is too much to take in. I love books and I love information. I hope we never lose real book, I don’t think tablets and iPads can replace the feeling of turning the page.
As mentioned in the previous post, my brother Nigel has been over here for the appointment in Liverpool. Nigel and Anne decided to stay for a few days in hotel near by for the weekend.
We spent some time in Chester on the Friday afternoon after the hospital and then on the Saturday we went for a meal and today they came over for breakfast before we went down the road to visit some shops before they set off back home.
It’s been a really good weekend, spending time with them, it was nice to see Charito laughing and joking with Anne, they get on really well and they never stopped laughing and giggling, they were like two little girls.
The next time I see Nigel will be when I’m getting his stell cells infused in a couple of weeks, I’ve told him he can pop in and see me, i’m sure he will was his hands first.
My brother Nigel had his appointment over at the Royal Liverpool on Friday. We thought it was going to be a a general chat to go over the procedure for extracting his stem cells. The person he was meeting with has to be someone not associated with the Royal Liverpool Hospital as they need to be unbiased towards me. I went with him, just to keep him company etc. I initially went into the room with him, but I was told I couldn’t be there had to leave. I think so they could talk openly and I didn’t try to influence any decisions that he had to make. Not that I thought for one minute he was going to change his mind and I know Nigel wouldn’t be bothered if I stayed, but I suppose they have to follow procedure.
I was kept busy while waiting though as we met up with Paula and Bernard, so I went for a coffee and cake with them and had a good laugh about things, as we do.
The transplant coordinator saw me at the coffee shop and asked if I wouldn’t mind signing the consent forms while I was there, so I said I would pop upstairs afterwards to go through it and pick up the schedule that I was going to collect.
After Nigel came out of the meeting, he had to have some tests he wasn’t expecting, ECG and X-Rays etc. Everything was fine though and it was just a matter of the usual waiting around for people to be seen.
I also saw Heather from my local Chester hospital who had been for a meeting about her possible transplant. I let her know that I was going to be (hopefully) stream my transplant live on the internet. I’m not sure if she will watch or it will put her off.
By the time we got the tenth floor and Nigel had picked up his prescription for the growth factor, the needles he needs to inject himself with to get the stem cells into his blood stream, it was gone lunch time. We still had to have another wait before seeing the Dr to run through all of the schedule and risks that are involved in my transplant. The schedule is below (clicking it should enlarge it) and I have put a link to the PDF of all of the risks and side effects. There are quite a few of them and I’m not going to get them all
So what we thought was going to be about an hours appointment turned out to be about 4 hours. We should have known better.
I pay my licence fee to the BBC and have enjoyed the coverage that they have provided both with new TV programmes, documentaries etc, but I am disgusted that they are still hiding what is going on in America at Wall Street.
I have just watch this Video of the young girls being sprayed with mace for no reason at all!. I have contacted the BBC to express my feelings, to them, please tell people what is going on and complain to the media, not just the BBC, we shouldn’t allow this to be swept under the carpet.
Please watch the video, if the Video showed Libya or Egypt, we would be demonstrating, saying that the dictator needs to go because he is turning on his own people. Time to look in the mirror I think!
I now know the date I am going into hospital. The 3 October is the day I am will be going in for my transplant. I will be attending the Clatterbridge Hospital at 12:15 on Monday 3rd and straight after that appointment, which is for the test Radio Therapy I will be going over to the Royal Liverpool Hospital where they will have a room ready for me (so I was told). That evening I will be having some Chemo and on Thursday I will going back over to Clatterbridge Hospital for the Radio Therapy also on this day will be my transplant, I’m not sure if this is before or after. I think I will be having the Radio therapy whilst Nigel begins the extraction and when I get back they will start to do the infusion.
I will get the full Schedule on Friday. Nigel has his consultation in Liverpool and I will be going with him. Edwina will be providing me with the full schedule then.
Google+ no longer requires you to receive an invite. So you don’t have to send me your email address for me to invite you, simple go the www.google.com and click on the sign up link under the search.
Don’t forget will be using Google+ for what is called hangouts to video chat with with anyone that wants to join in as well as using the livestream that I have just blogged about in a previous posts. So lots of ways for me to keep in touch and communicate with everyone and anyone that wants to join in.
Looking forward to seeing you all there and helping me get through this difficult time. Thanks in advance. I love you all x
For those that are interested in what is involved in a Stem Cell Transplant (bone marrow transplant) I am planning to do a live streaming of my transplant from the hospital.
The streaming will depending on a number of factors, so I can’t guarantee it yet. I’m currently not sure how fast the connection will be, as they don’t have wireless I will be attempting it over the 3G network. I will attempt some test streams prior to the day to see if it works.
I’m also not 100% sure of the date and time yet, but will be posting on here as soon as I know. I do know that I will now be in hospital the week commencing the 3 October as Clatterbride Hospital have contacted me to arrange my Radio Therapy. My test radio therapy is on the 3rd and my real Radio Therapy on the 6 at 12:15. I can’t remember if I have the Radio Therapy before or after the SCT. I think it is after which will make my SCT on the Wednesday, but again not sure on these dates, so will let you know.
Now we all love a good conspiracy theory, but I never thought I would be involved in one and see it for myself.
Let me explain: Did you know that from Saturday there have been 100’s of protesters on the streets of Wall Street? No? Why Not?
You would think that something as big as that would be mentioned on the news, especially in light of other gatherings that have happened such as those in Egypt and Libya, OK it may be slightly different in that what they were objecting against was there freedom, but the rally in the US is the people of the United States standing up against the corrupt society and banks and saying they have had enough of them making millions whilst other are in poverty without jobs.
I started to follow this issue on twitter as it was mentioned in lots of my feeds #occupyWallStreet #takeWallStreet #ourWallStreet. The more I was following what was going on the more I was amazed. The peaceful rally has been organised by a number of groups that are unhappy with the situation the US, one of them is called ‘Anonymous’. You may have heard of Anonymous in the past, they have been involved in previous rallies such as those mentioned and also as an hactivist group, taking down websites and targeting big corporations who try to silence the smaller person who fights for what is right.
In the past the media has tried to portray ‘Anonymous’ as some kind of evil organisation, but if people actually take the time to find out what they are and what they are about, then I think they will come to realise that they are the same as you and I. Just ordinary everyday people that are angry at the way the government and corporations of this world tell people how to live their lives whilst creaming millions off for themselves. Anonymous’ ethos is ‘United as One divided by zero’ in other words a group of like minded individuals from all walks of life. To quote Anonymous: ‘Anonymous is a collective of people across the world who, despite their common differences in opinion and beliefs, unite under one common desire for true freedom and a world rid of oppression.’
Going back to Wall Street, part of the plan of Anonymous is to organise the take over of wall street, which is happening right now! Yes it is in it’s 4th day. So going back to why I’m writing this post, is the question I started to ask myself … why isn’t it in the news. The answer is that there is a complete media blackout on it, not just in the US but also in the UK. It was all over twitter and lots of people contacting the news agencies asking why they are not reporting it, I myself contacted a few people from various social networks asking the same question. Everyone got the same reply, or rather didn’t. They never answer as if it doesn’t exist or isn’t going on. Aljazeera were the only ones that had any information on it http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/us-protesters-rally-occupy-wall-street but nothing in the UK and US. As it progressed I continued to follow what was going on live through http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution (doesn’t always stream live but most of the time when they are not asleep). Here I was watching it live, so I knew what was going on and I was simply amazed that there was still nothing in the news. Surely something no matter how small, but no nothing.
Now if someone told me that this could happen where both the US and UK sometime don’t report on major news stories and hide important news items when it is suitable for the government or media, I wouldn’t have believed them and brushed it aside as another one of those conspiracy theories. Now however I know it it be true – I have to ask why would they do such a thing. The only conclusion is that they don’t want it to escalate into something much larger, so they are supressing it. If that is the case, then it means that the media and the Governments have some kind of agreement. This just makes it worse though and makes me angry to know that the news we are getting might not be the the whole truth, don’t get me wrong I’m not naive enough to think that everything they tell us in the newspapers and TV is always factual, but I would expect to be able to make my own informed decision.
Here we are though with news being deliberately hidden from us. How many other times has this happened and going to happen in the future. Is it right that the Government and Media decide what we should and shouldn’t know. The fact that they are hiding this rally in Wall Street only adds fuel to the fire and proves them right in what they are saying.
The plan is to occupy wall street for a month, it will be interesting to see if the news agencies finally start reporting it, I’m sure they will if it ends up getting violent, then they will blame the protesters and try to make them out as some kind of terrible people. At the moment it is more of a community atmosphere with singing and partying. It is a non violent protest and that’s the way they want it to stay. As we know though from past experiences sometimes others get involved to cause disruption and has often occurred in other countries it is the government themselves who use people pretending to be so called activist to start the violence and disrupt things, so that they can send in the police and the heavies using water cannons etc. They would rather they weren’t their at all so to get rid of them they have to start something so they have an excuse and to say ‘see I told you so’
As for me I will no longer rely solely on the main news, we could be missing out on the really important issues. I will continue to find information/news about what is going on from my social sites and twitter, where I am communication with real people. The people who are there right now.
Is this a conspiracy theory, not any longer, not for me. A theory is something that hasn’t been proven. I now know that the Governments and Media collude to restrict news items when and how they want for their own benefit.
