Last month I was *finally* able to give blood again – I had to have a brief hiatus because I went to Kenya (after which your blood is considered “malarial” for 6 months), then I was booked to give in July last year, which was cancelled at the last minute Because COVID and quite honestly finding a session that is reasonably near and at a convenient time is surprisingly tricky. For some reason, the centres I go to seem to switch when they operate – it feels like for ever since they have been at the Civic Hall in Ormskirk, for example, where I can walk to and where last time I bumped into my mate Gareth.

This time I went to Formby Hall Golf & Country Club, 20 minutes drive away, at the not-super-convenient time of 13:45 on a Wednesday. Honestly, the hands-free, excessive personal space experience of giving blood during a pandemic very much worked for me, and as always it was something of an effort to stay awake while reclining, with only the rythmic clenching of my hand to keep me conscious.

One brief moment of excitement came when the nurse “sorting me out” shared that “the people from PR9 are here” in a stage whisper. This confused me, until she clarified that PR9 is where the South African Variant is, and they aren’t meant to leave their homes. At this point I was on a recliner with a needle in my arm, so there wasn’t much I could do other than shrug and carry on not touching anything.

This was a month or so ago and I don’t appear to have caught anything, so bullet dodged, eh.

Today I got a link through saying that my blood has been given to a person in need in Preston, with a link to a map of its journey.

Amazing what technology can do these days, eh?! I’ve got 17 donation credits so far, I’m aiming for at least 25 so have got my next one booked in for as soon as I’m allowed, which is mid-to-late June.

In the run-up to Hallowe’en it seems appropriate to delve again into the world of free-flowing blood that is stem cell donation.

Just over 3 years ago I was lucky enough to be selected as a stem cell donor for an anonymous recipient on the continent, presumably (because if not, then it was quite cheeky) because they are/were suffering some form of blood cancer. Going along with the process seemed like a no-brainer to me, indeed at most stages I was really concerned that some reason would be found why I wasn’t a suitable donor, or couldn’t donate at that time. I still feel quite bitter about the time I was turned away from donating blood because I had a cold, even though I understand the reasons.

No reasons were found why I shouldn’t/couldn’t donate, so I had a lovely trip to London where the stem cells were sucked out of me. The hardest part about it was guiding the community nurse who had to visit me to the holiday cottage I was staying in, in Ludlow (which I didn’t know *at all*, and neither did she. Her: “I’ve just gone over a bridge into town.” Me: “I need more clues. All I know is I can see a castle from here.”) closely followed by remembering not to bend my arm when it had the big metal needle in it for 4 hours. Oh, and having a cannula stuck in my hand overnight in warm weather made me feel slightly like I could do with one of those cones the vets use to stop me gnawing my arm off.

But other than that, it was a breeze.

I go more into the pro’s and cons in my summary, written at the time.

So, why revisit it now? Other than to perpetuate the smug feeling a bit longer (I donated stem cells, did I mention that?), and join in with the general bloodthirstiness of Hallowe’en, my whole point in writing anything about any of this online is to encourage other people to put their hands up.

Sign up to be a bone marrow donor.

They hardly ever stick wide bore needles into your thigh bones these days. While it’s not a procedure for the needle-averse, it’s not properly painful and your worst enemy is boredom. I got through day 1 with Richard Herring interviewing Tim Minchin and laughed so much I nearly bent my arm (see above).

If you’re over 49, work on the young people you have in your life to get them to do it – you’re close to being over the hill as the cut-off, depending on which organisation wants your blood, is either 30 or 49 – but under that age you have no excuse.

Another reason why this is on my mind is that I’m lined up to give blood again for the first time since then, in a couple of weeks. You should (all) do that, too and if you already do then signing up for the bone marrow registry is super easy – just ask them about it while you’re there.  I’ve left it shamefully long, which is going to make it harder for me to hit my next milestone of 25 donations. My competitive self is giving me a good kicking about that, worry not.

So, I’ll say it again. Sign up to be a bone marrow donor. You may never get called, but if you do, you get to save a life. And you may get a free t-shirt.

There are two good things I would like to come out of the apparently increased traffic to my blog during my stem cell donation.

1. That “Pedro” the enormo-recipient achieves the health improvement that’s hoped for from the actual donation. (Note to Pedro – I appreciate you’re not *that* big, and you’re name might not be Pedro, but it helps me to think of you in a comedic manner. I’d like to think that as well as my blood group, you’ll also get some of my sense of humour. If not, then you’re probably very upset at the moment… sorry.)

2. That more people I am able to reach this way consider becoming potential bone marrow donors themselves.

Here are some encouragements…

• it’s not very likely you’ll be plucked from the register. I only know one other person who has donated stem cells. He did it the hard way a long time ago (onya, Phil, by the way).
• if you’re a working parent, you shouldn’t sniff at a free trip to London by yourself and the chance to lie down without being pestered for at least 4 hours (I got lucky – I got 8 hours).
  
• you’re unlikely to be out of pocket. So far the BBMR have treated me right & either paid for stuff up-front or are going to reimburse me.
• being injected in your tummy doesn’t hurt. The first of two injections per day doesn’t hurt. The second one only stings a little bit and, like childbirth, you soon forget what it was like.
• I won’t lie to you, it’s not a process for the needle averse. I had 8 injections, 2 “out” pipes, one “in” cannula which stayed in overnight. Having said that, after the initial stab, it didn’t hurt.
  
• the only people so far who haven’t been very impressed at what I’m doing are my children. And they’re under 10 and not ill, so really don’t get it. Steve has now got so sick of me being modest that he’s adopting a Ford Prefect approach of “oh, OK then – you’re right. It’s nothing.” (if you don’t get the reference, (re-)read The Hitch-hikers Guide To The Galaxy. I’ll be over here, getting jealous while I wait)
• You might get to discover a fab new way of doing your hair
  
• the nurses were lovely. The clinic was swanky. They didn’t do that just because it was me – they do that for all the donors. If you’re found through the Anthony Nolan thing you get a t-shirt and bag. I got flowers (they’re lovely, thank you)
• you can put your name down, and if the letter comes through and you’ve changed your mind, you can say no even then. But would you? If you knew there was someone out there who needed your stem cells, and it just meant a week of inconvenience and some injections, would you turn them down?
  

I think you need to be eligible to donate blood in order to do it, but other than that, there just has to be an ill person who matches enough of their chromosomes with yours. And if you have a bad back they don’t let you. The likelihood of anonymous donors being found if you’re ill is small if you’re northern European. If you’re from an ethnic minority, it’s ridiculously small. The more people there are on the register, the better those odds get.

So please, if you can, firstly donate blood (you can consider that a gateway procedure), and secondly, get your name on the bone marrow register.

It’s really no big deal.

(p.s. @robinince just told me (let’s just appreciate that moment – I got to have a 2-tweet exchange with Comedy God Robin Ince) that he was refused by Anthony Nolan Trust on the grounds of being too old. I looked up how old he is and he is only very slightly older than me. Either I’m bang on the threshold, or the BBMR have a higher threshold, or he was refused for another reason and they were casting about for plausible Other Reasons. In any case (and seriously, Robin, I’m IN NO WAY casting aspersions or speculating about what those other reasons could have been because so far you’re the only remotely famous person (apart from the lovely @Caroline_S) to retweet me, so will be ETERNALLY GRATEFUL until the Ricky Gervais or Tim Minchin effect kicks in and the server crashes)), even if you’re about as terribly old as I am, it’s probably worth at least asking the question…)

Apologies for failing to wrap up on the whole stem cell donation thing – I was so excited to be heading home that I haven’t got around to it yet. Instead I’ve done 3 loads of laundry, 2 days at work, a week’s worth of shopping & menu planning and almost completed the armhole shaping on a very complicated-patterned cardigan.

So, Day 2. I was trying to work out ways to make it better in light of the not-going-home disappointment, so had a play with my hair. I decided that this style was best for no lumps on the back of the head, and also hopefully not looking like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards after 4 hours of head-on-pillow.

It seemed to work quite well. It apparently still looked quite good by the time I got home as the children asked why I don’t do it more often.

Day 2 was much quieter as there was only me in the 5-chair/bed bay rather than the 3 of us from the day before. Also, the nurse in charge Mariamma was a bit quieter and more serious than Grant. He was about, but had other stuff on the go too. I listened mainly to Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast. First off was Tim Minchin as guest – he was very good. Then Jonathon Ross, Francesca Martinez and part of Charlie Higson. The first episode had me laughing out loud – indeed they were all fairly entertaining – but after a while I started getting a bit fed up of Herring’s style. I can’t really put my finger on why, but his manner seems a bit… self important while at the same time seeming embittered about the lack of success Fist of Fun was allowed to have by the BBC. I’m still listening to them, I’m just sayin’. Maybe not all in one sitting is better! (update: ps. If by some bizarre change Richard actually reads this, please rest assured I’ve finished the series now & have got over that. You’re fab. especially if you re-tweeted me…)

This was my view as I was listening…

see all the other empty beds…

About half an hour in we had major pressure problems – apparently the blood was all flowing fine, but the flashing lights & beeping kept going off, so a heat pack was applied (that was really nice, actually) and there was quite a lot of needle jiggling and adjustment of lines out. I had to squeeze a thing periodically, and eventually we got it sorted. All that meant I was afraid to move my arm *at all* for the next 3 hours and when the needle was removed and I was told to bend my elbow over completely, it was one of the sorest things I’ve had to do. Apart from giving birth. It wasn’t *that* sore.

So, once the needle was out and all the blood had made its way back in from The Machine, I had some lunch and scooted.

The next day I found out the scores on the doors – Wednesday a lot less was collected, meaning that we just scraped up to 4 overall. However, the numbers (it turns out) are [the-number] x 10/6 stem cells per kg of recipient weight – which means that it’s a proportionate number relating to the recipient weight. So they were apparently asking for a high dose as well as a high dose for a larger recipient (I think). So although I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t hit target, hopefully it should still be enough to help the intended recipient.

There don’t seem to have been any lasting effects, other than on Thursday I noticed that the back of my hand looked like this…

Which is quite the bruise, from Tuesday’s blood test.

Steve and the children came to meet me at Liverpool Lime Street which made the journey home quite a bit easier. We then went on to go to Pizza Express at the docks for dinner which meant that Joel was complaining about being taken away from the Wii for the whole evening, and Lily was bellyaching about going on the big wheel that’s right next to the restaurant.

Welcome home!

Several people have asked why am I doing this?

We can understand if it’s for little billy-bob or for cousin Reg, but why would you go through the stress and trauma of donating bone marrow for a complete stranger? I could refer to the saccharine assertion that strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet, but that’s not really my style. But in some ways, that is why I’m doing this. Every patient who needs bone marrow is *somebody’s* billy bob. If one of my kids needed an organ or something like this, and no relation could be found who was a close enough match, then we would be relying on someone like me who was willing to go through this process for someone they don’t know, and potentially for an unknown outcome.

As I was settling down the other night I also thought about what my mum would do. She donated blood, but I have no idea whether she would have gone to these lengths of altruism. And in some ways it doesn’t matter ~ I’m pretty sure that she would have approved. Certainly, everyone I’ve mentioned this to so far has firstly said how lovely that I get to do this, and only a few have expressed concern at its impact on me. Not because they don’t care, but because the outcome potentially far outweighs the inconvenience.

The process so far has been minimally traumatic and not at all bothersome. I had to travel to London for a medical which seemed excessive, but having learned that the alternative is Sheffield, I think London is actually easier for me to get to. I had to get someone at work to do blood draws for me, but they do that kind of thing all the time, and that was only because there was a bit of a delay. The nurse who injected me the past 3 days took a bit of guiding to find us the first day, but from then on just pitched up and did her stuff and was gone within the hour. Side effects have been minimal, to the point where I’m not sure if I’m just experiencing them because I’ve been told about them. Such as I had a bit of an achey back yesterday, but other than the slight throbbing that went with it, it could have been attributed to the slightly ropey sofas we were sitting on at our holiday cottage. So far so bearable. If the preferred method was the operation under general anaesthetic and big needle, I would have thought twice and be quite a bit more daunted, but assuming that doesn’t have to happen, the effort on my part will have been laughably small. I wouldn’t recommend this process for anyone who is needle- averse, unless they were looking for a kill-or-cure style fix for said phobia. They generally don’t hurt, but there have been several a day during collection.

So, in return for a week or so of inconvenience and Steve having to solo parent for a bit (which he would have had to do the past 4 days anyway), we get to save or prolong someone’s life.

Why would you not?

It was with a small amount of trepidation that I swung up to The London Clinic at 08:50 this morning. First order of the day was a white blood cell count, which took 20 minutes or so to come back. In the meantime Grant The Nurse explained to me that as the recipient is a large person (110kg, apparently), the donation that has been asked for is large. I’m not sure what the numbers are, but generally a donation is 2 to 3, maybe a little more. A large donation would be 4. My recipient’s health professionals are asking for 5. There has been much sucking of teeth over this.

Grant’s proposed solution was basically to turn everything up to 11. It may mean more side effects, but there’s a chance I get to go home tonight if we get to within 10% of the requested amount.

And so, I get hooked up. A metal “out” needle in my left arm which means I have to remember not to bend or I’ll do myself an injury, and an “in” cannula in the other arm. An anticoagulant is added to my blood stream to make things flow faster, which might cause tingling in the face, hands & feet and possibly nausea.

A load more vials of blood were taken off for testing as well. Grant, entering into the spirit of the blogging thing, very kindly took this picture…

…and that was basically it for 4 hours. I listened to podcasts, read blogs and generally chilled. I didn’t get any tingling, but I did feel a bit nauseous, which, when I remembered I was supposed to flag side effects and get them dealt with, was dealt with swiftly & effectively.

So, at roughly 1:45pm the “out” was unhooked, and this picture, much to the amusement of my fellow harvest-ees, was Grant’s idea:

Lunch was served pretty much straight away – it was a cut above the usual hospital food, but they could have been a *little* more generous with the tuna&sweetcorn on my baked potato. And I don’t really count a chewy pain au chocolat as a “Danish”, but then we know I’m picky. Also, I was pretty much press ganged into having these scones, which would have been better with a brew…

So, having been unhooked, my crop was sent for analysis to see whether I need to come back tomorrow. In the meantime I went over to the park to cloud spot.

I spotted an excellent piranha attacking a fluffy bunny but by the time I got my phone out, they were gone. I pottered back for my results, which were unfortunately somewhat disappointing. We collected just over half of what’s been asked for, so I’m back for another 4 hour session tomorrow.
I feel a little bit down about this because I’m ready to go home now. Plus, I feel a bit bad about the time I’m taking off work. On the plus side, I’m now at large in London with a tube stuck in my arm…

I’ve reinstalled the wordpress app – steve reminded me this was possible over 3G (durr) so now I can show you the pics from yesterday.

This is the very shiny & new-looking crockery & tea pot I was served a brew in at The (swanky) London Clinic.

So as not to compromise my veins for today, they took blood from the back of my hand instead of the usual inside the elbow…

I went for a stroll after my appointment and before tea, and it turns out that having more white cells in your blood stream
doesn’t make this any less stressful…

My last injection took place at The (swanky) London clinic this afternoon. First they did a blood test to do a white blood cell count, after which they would either halve or double or no change my injection dose, depending on how well I’m doing at making them.

It turns out, I’m doing pretty well, slightly above target, so the dose remained the same. At which point the nurse brings out a really big syringe and said “I’ll just do the one injection for you.”

Dare I say, eep?

They checked my veins again for big needle & cannula-tasticness – apparently its all good. I’ve to report back tomorrow at 5 to 9 and make sure I get both a white and yellow piece of paper from reception (!)

I’ll leave it there as WordPress isn’t playing ball with me nicely at the moment – my iPad app keeps crashing & accessing through the Internet on an iPad is less than satisfactory, it seems…

So, it turns out I’m fine from a bone marrow donation point of view. The blood tests all came back OK.

However. I’d cleared out the week in question of meetings, warned work I was going to be away (they’re being very accommodating, by the way, in the way that you would hope from a clinical research facility run by a big research establishment associated with a big hospital where they do this kind of stuff as well), arranged child care and was generally ALL FINE for the week they wanted to harvest the BM.

And then, when the nice BBMR lady called back, she said they wanted to postpone the harvesting until… the least convenient week of my summer altogether. This is the week when I’m due to be in Abersoch the weekend before (without being in Northern Scotland, about as far away as you can get by land transport), looking after the children during the week, and then away with a friend the weekend after (which, if they had to go for plan B: big needle in hip, would be toast).

After stressing about it for an hour I called back and asked for the week to be a different week – pretty much any other week rather than that one.

I’d agonised over this as I don’t want to be unhelpful, but at the end of that day this is my summer break we’re talking about and it’s not like I’m planning last minute things, or stuff which could be rearranged. My friend works in academia and so this was the last weekend she could have taken as a long one before term time kicks in again. Plus, we’d paid for accommodation in what I assume is a non-refundable manner.

And yes, I’m aware that it’s a week out of my life, but possible life-saving-ness for the other person. In my defence, I’d like to point out that they wanted to change the date first.

Anyway, they raised their offer to the following week. So that’s good. All we have to do is wait, and in the meantime, someone at work gets to take nearly a pint of blood  out of my arm as the blood tests have to be done within 30 days of harvesting, so have to be repeated.