I think there may have been a problem with the server as I wasn't able to upload the previous diary, so you've got an excellent two for one offer. I've started my third week of incarceration and the boredom is slowly creeping in. Actually it's only boring if I don't get up and do something as was the case yesterday.

The bone marrow came and went on Friday. Eventually I got the marrow just after 8pm. The flight had been delayed and therefore the marrow was late in arriving. By midnight all the marrow had been infused and the clock started counting. Counting in terms of waiting for the engraftment to take place. Although I've now got somebody else's bone marrow it isn't doing anything inside me except flow through my blood system.

In the meantime my white cell counts have now fallen to next-to-nothing so I am officially neutropoenic, meaning I have no immunity or functioning immune system. This is the delayed effect of the radiotherapy, and means that I am now highly susceptible to infections and bacteria mainly from my gut.

The new marrow should take between two to three weeks to engraft itself into my bone marrow and start working again. I guess it's a bit like starting a new job, it takes a while to become productive. Therefore the next two or three weeks are the most critical, because any infections need to be spotted quickly in order for an appropriate response to counter the infection.

As a result I am being monitored more closely, and have to report any changes in the way I feel however small incase that is a sign of trouble. The only changes I have felt has been the slight ulceration of the left side of my tongue. By the weekend I should expect my whole mouth to be feeling pretty sore, so as a precaution, a nasal gastric (NG) tube was inserted in through my nose yesterday.

The procedure itself is painless except when inserting the tube in through the nose as it tickles. It's having the tube there permanently that is annoying. The tube descends through the oesophagus in to the stomach, but where the tube passes by the tongue at the back of the mouth it where the real aggravation lies. Every time I swallow it feels like there's a piece of spaghetti stuck in my throat and you naturally want to spit it out. It's a precautionary measure in case when the mouth is ulcerated I find it too painful to swallow, special fluids can be passed to the stomach via the NG tube in order to maintain a balanced and healthy nutritional intake. Otherwise one would lose important nutrients and would be even more susceptible to infections.

I also started the first of three courses of one last chemotherapy - Methotrexate. It's given in a small syringe on days 2, 4 and 8 following the transplant and should speed up the ulceration of the mouth.

My hair is still on my head, but can be confident that it will soon fall out. I expected it to fall out last week but the effects from the radiotherapy on my hair take longer. My weight has fallen a bit. When I came in I was 90.5 kg and now I'm around 86 kg but I'm still eating well, so I think some of that is loss of water and muscle wastage. It'll be interesting to see how much I lose by the time I leave this place which feels like an eternity away at the moment.