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Donor top up

Week before last I finally had my first dose of DLI donor stem cell top up. It all went fine but was as usual a very long day.

You start the day with blood tests and an assessment to make sure your well enough for treatment, then the lab is contacted to get your cells. Once the cells are released from the lab you have your pre meds these are to try and prevent a reaction not to the cells themselves but the chemicals they are in. Your small bag of cells is then put in what they call a bath, this is a lidded container with water which heats up and defrosts the cells as they are stored frozen. You are then given saline through a cannula and then the cells and finally more saline to push the cells through quickly.

I had no side effects apart from being a bit drowsy from the pre meds.

Next is the wait for graft versus host disease once there are signs of this it means the DLI is working and the donor cells are having an argument with your remaining cells. The hope is to get rid of my remaining cells and have more donor cells.

Also in the last week I have had my MRI’S of both my knees hopefully they will shed some light on my joint pains.

So for now it is a waiting game for GVHD although it can be anything between 14 days to a few months before it shows but my blood tests should show something if it is working. I may still need further top ups of DLI, they do only use a small amount of cells each time.

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