Woke up this morning with a spring in my step. I'm feeling just like Tony the Tiger....Ggggrreeaatttt! Not that I've been feeling ill over the last couple of days, but this morning I feel quite charged up. Over the last three days my mouth has rapidly deteriorated, and although I've been feeling good both mentally and physically, having a sore mouth made me feel like not doing anything. Not that there's much to do now being confined to my room as I'm neutropoenic.

On day 4 (Tuesday 5th) I had the second dose of methotrexate and by the following morning on day 5 (Wednesday 6th) my mouth was feeling more sore. The tongue has become pretty ulcerated and the top of my throat was causing problems swallowing due to sharp pains and the irritation caused by the NG tube and the ulcerated throat.

To alleviate the pain there are different mouth washes available that dull the pain. They work by numbing the mouth to some extent. First I took what is called a BMU solution. I nearly threw up because it tasted absolutely foul. Then I was introduced to the cocaine mouth wash which you should not swallow for obvious reasons. That also has a bad taste but at least you can spit it out. The cocaine mouth wash works very quickly and quickly numbs the mouth allowing you to eat and drink without too much discomfort.

Also on day 5 I noticed that I could pull my hair out by running my hands through the hair, so with the help of one of the nurses we shaved all my hair off. I also noticed that it wasn't just the hair on the head that was starting to fall out. I can pull hair off my stubble, chest and under my arms too. Even the hair down south is also starting to fall away. I'm expecting to lose everything except possibly my eyebrows.

Over the course of Wednesday my mouth continued to deteriorate, and by day 6 (Thursday 7th) morning it felt really raw. At this point you get treated with the heavy duty pain killers; diamorphine. It's basically the same as morphine, and is given at a very low constant rate through the hickman line. As the pain in the mouth increases so does the flow rate. The initial dose of the diamorphine really knocked me out, and I spent the whole day in a daze half-a-sleep, so there wasn't much to say about Thursday.

My weight loss seems to have abated and I'm now at the 85kg mark, but the dieticians want to start me on drip feeding as I'm not getting my full nutritional intake. The platelet levels in my blood have been dropping quite a bit, therefore I'll have to have a platelet transfusion at some point soon. The platelets stop you from bleeding and the normal range is 120 - 400. By yesterday mine were down at 26.

So one week post BMT I'm still feeling good but it will be at least another 10 - 14 days before we see any signs of engraftment.