It makes culling your Xmas Card list quite easy!. "Friends" who knew I had a potentially terminal cancer via our family 2007 Xmas Letter and may well have not been "around" by Xmas 2008 - and made no effort to even enquire by phone at ANY time of my wife about my "situation" are permanently off my list. Perhaps that sounds hard - but quite frankly, I no longer want to know some. When you've toughed out the months of being really, really sick with a huge black cloud over your existance, it was an easy decision to make. However, I am pleased to say that the reverse of this is that I have consolidated a number of friends into people that recognise as true & loyal friends. ... View more

At the risk of boring you further - I recall OCT 2008 I went to a Sunday conference in the city... and decided to walk some of the way home. Although I had a tram ticket in my pocket [ my security blanket !] - I let the various trams pass me by and just kept walking on this rather hot afternoon. As the afternoon progressed, I got to the point where I was not going to weaken and take a tram - ... until I got to a point that Box Hill was in sight - and finally, after some 6 hours had walked home, sunburnt and quite blistered feet [ being only in unsuitable street shoes]. For me, it was a HUGE milestone - as I knew then that I would be well enough for us to do our planned o/seas trip in 2009. I rember rejoycing - " Hey - I'm back!!" 🙂 - and had moved on from the Mantle Cell Lympohoma WEB page that still implies usualy deceased within 3 years. None of us knows whats ahead of us - nor if it comes back to bite me again - but for the present, I'm absolutely determined [baring injury] to run the 2010 marathon. Certainly a bone marrow stem cell transplant had worked for my metabolism. My advice to you is to "walk-walk-walk" yourself back to good health. :-) ... View more

On a further point - I absolutely understand your current feelings of feebleness of legs. I recall one day - about February 2008, my wife & I went for one of our many drives - and ended up at the beach at Edithvale [or somewhere there] and walking out to the end of the pier. Having got to the end just to take in the sights, I looked back to the car parked way over on Beach Road and I really wondered "how" was going to walk myself back to it ... at that stage 400-500 metres was tough going !~ Reminiscences like this are now just a fading memory. Pre-diagnosis, in 2007 - I knew I wasnt well but why?? What was wrong with me ?? Why was I having difficulty walking [particularly up hills] with my wife on our weekend walks through the Blackburn Creeklands. That whole chapter on my life of 6 months of chemo,PICC Lines, etc, is now behind me. Only a few months ago we walked some 14 km on a circuit around Paris. My wife was having trouble keeping up with me. Life has moved on, - having used 15 months of Sick Leave and am currently enjoying 10 months of Long Service Leave before we both return to work in January 2010. I never for a moment expected to be well enough to return to work back in 2007/ early 08. I hope the above is not too boring but is intended to give you "encouragement and hope" from someone who has been there and "done that" and moved on and back to a normal lifestyle. ... View more

Hi Mary - I had three sessions [ of 3 hours] on 3 successive days for a Stem Cell Extraction at Peter Mac in Dec 2007. I was quite unaware it was happening - and certainly had no ill effects whatsoever. They collected some 13 Million bone marrow cells for the freezer. Apparently the freezing kills off any "Mantle Cell Lymphoma" that may also be extracted. The only effects that I noticed was when the 8 bags of yellow fluid were returned to me [ via an "arrow line" direct into my neck jugular vein] during my live-in 4 weeks at Peter Mac was that for 24 hours my legs ached - actually it was an aching in the leg bones - just nagging but certainly nothing to require pain killers/nurofen. The nurse explained this was normal and was the successful process of the bone marrow stem cells re-entering the bone marrow and was what was intended to happen. It wasnt painful - it just felt the same as if I had had a hard race from my aths days [ eg 20 kn / 20 miles hard race] ... nothing to worry about but leg bones just sort of aching with tiredness. As mentioned on my blog - yesterday I RAN 30Km [18 miles] on a circuit I use in Blackburn [Melb] - whereas in Dec 2007 I could only walk 100 meters or so before wanting to sit down on a chair ! I attribute my progress to walking EVERY DAY WITHOUT FAIL in 2008- to get back leg muscle tone after months of inactivity, to a point of my New Year resolution 2009 of RUNNING [ until March 09 when by wife & I had 5 months o/seas touring Europe/UK / Ireland etc. when there simply was not the oppurtunity at the end of the day on on bus tour groups to run - but we certainly made up for it with loads of daily walking sightseeing. Having returned to Melb in August - I have rapidly regained running fitness to do yesterdays 30 km - aqlthough the last 5 km was a real struggleto get back home ! ... View more