Thursday, 2 July 2009

The 5 of us left for Sydney around 9.00am (Kurt was sick and stayed home) and had a pretty uneventful ride down, arriving with plenty of time to spare. Drew was very excited and decided on arrival at the hospital, that he liked it because it didn't smell like a hospital. We met Dr Russell and Lucy, the nursing coordinator and had a quite in depth discussion, outlining Drew's medical history, the process and possible complications. There are many and some of them are very frightening. We are due to go back to Sydney in two weeks for a heart test which involves radioactive material, which means a needle - Drew has decided he is not looking forward to going now. We will then return on the 19 July ready to go into hospital on the Monday. Drew will have conditioning treatment, including radiotherapy leading up to the transplant on 30/07/09. This destroys his bone marrow and immune system, he will then receive a very well matched cord blood transplant. It is very confronting and there are a lot of risks,but without a crystal ball, you have to make the best decision based on the information you have and the confidence you have in the Doctors.