Day 8

Ellen has had a reasonably good day. Thankfully her line does not need to come out and she is not yet in isolation. Her first stem cells were infused today which went to plan. She will be given more stem cells over the next three days. After that we just wait for her bone marrow to recover. As ever we just hope things will run smoothly....

Day 7

Ellen has been better than we had expected today. She does have a line infection. We will find out tomorrow if her line will have to be removed. Nevertheless her stem cell transplant will begin tomorrow afternoon. We are not yet in isolation but that will probably start early next week depending on her blood test results. We just keep our fingers crossed that things will run smoothly next week.

Day 6

Well it has begun.....

Ellen has been impressively well for the past few days. She was even allowed home for a couple of hours yesterday evening. However like a bolt of lightening she has become unwell this afternoon. One minute we were painting in the playroom and the next she had a high temperature and a very impressive rigor. She has a presumed line infection and is back on IV antibiotics. We just hope that this will keep it at bay or we will run into the nightmare of a new line in the middle of her stem cell transplant.

Day 3

We are now half way through the high dose chemo phase of Ellen's bone marrow transplant. She is doing amazingly well. She has spent most of the day running up the hospital corridors singing 'We are the champions'. It is still very tough for us as we are aware that Ellen is somewhat of a ticking time bomb as the side effects of the chemo will not present themselves until next week. We have been told that all children respond differently and we can only hope Ellen's response is a mild one!

Day 1

High dose chemo has begun. We are now in a small side room which is thankfully 'air conditioned'. Ellen is in good spirits, little does she know how long she is going to spend in this room...

Last few days of freedom

Back to reality

Ellen's bone marrow transplant will start on Monday. This will take a minimum of six weeks and initially involves very high dose chemotherapy for a week. Her stem cells will then be given back to her via her Hickman line. This whole process is very high risk and we have been told that Ellen will become extremely unwell throughout the procedure. We are all (apart from Ellen who remains her cheerful self) completely terrified. We will keep you posted.......