Despite my tissue mistyping, I learned today that a donor had eventually been selected on the basis of the CTLP tests. There were three potential candidates each of whom had their blood mixed separately with mine. Only one of the CTLP results were favourable therefore the donor selection was pretty straight forward. That was a great piece of news, and finally to know where you stand which respect to the bone marrow transplant (BMT).

It turned out that Polish register that the hospital were also investigating produced no matches. So who is this donor? I know that it is a German woman with 2 children who is CMVneg. This means she hasn't got the smallpox virus, which is a good thing as I am also CMVneg. The only thing against her was that she'd been pregnant. Women who have not been pregnant are considered better than pregnant women. This is not because of hormonal changes, but due to some changes in her immune system. When a woman is pregnant her child's blood system is interconnected with her own. But, her child doesn't have the same typing as the mother; it has a mixture of the father and mother's typing. The ability for these two immune systems to coexist causes some changes in the mother's immune system that means her bone marrow isn't quite as suitable for a BMT as before she was pregnant. These differences aren't vast, but nonetheless they are still noted. Anyway, as long as I don't start sprouting breasts and talking German following the BMT, I'm happy to have her as a donor.

We had to decide upon a date for the operation, and finally decided upon January after the Christmas holidays. Rest and preparation are vital before a BMT, and I wanted to visit my parents in Abu Dhabi and have a relaxing holiday before returning to deal with the BMT.

Although the date wasn't set, we would work towards a January date as close to my return as possible. An appointment also had to be set up for a pre-BMT work-up day, where various tests are carried out to server as a reference to how well my body was before the radiotherapy runined it.