2017: My Singapore M.S. Odyssey

The above is all I've taken away from my first appointment at the hospital today. Nah, jokes (although flattering), it was a lovely first visit, and really good to finally meet everyone. The heat and waiting outside the apartment for a taxi to Raffles Hospital meant that I was pretty bad at walking when I arrived. I felt like I gave Yati (the transplant co-ordinator / Assistant Manager / my point of contact once I was accepted for the treatment) a bit of a fright - I don't think she was expecting me to be having such difficulty walking (3.5 EDSS can be misleading, I guess, and I am so sensitive to the physical environment). But it was all good, and once I cooled down, things were a little easier. Anyway, she took my height and weight, to calculate how much drug I'll need for the chemo (photo courtesy of Paparazzi Peter): And then they took crazy amounts of blood (checking for viruses, antibodies, everything really). For my Tysabri family, there were no issue...

We left on Sunday night; WLG - AKL - SNG (the most direct route possible). I flew Business Class, to avoid being around too many other people who might be harbouring colds or 'flus, and that was lovely. Although despite the fact that Air NZ Business has lie-flat beds, I only managed to get about an hour or two of sleep. I also didn't really wear my mask (which I was supposed to do) because I found it really stifling, and hard to breathe comfortably. I'll have to wear one on the way back, but hopefully I haven't picked up anything treatment-delaying with my failure to do so on the way over. Upon arrival at the airport, we flew through customs (seriously, it was so quick) and went to get a taxi to our apartment where a member of the property management staff met us. Getting a taxi wasn't the easiest though, because the drivers of regular cars wouldn't take us and all of our luggage (three months people, don't judge!); James (one of our house/cat-sitters) ...

We're leaving TOMORROW! I have been thinking that I might need to clarify the treatment I'm travelling for: HSCT is an intense chemotherapy regime, and it is commonly done for certain types of cancer all over the world, including in New Zealand. The stem cell aspect of the treatment is just to enable a quicker recovery (so the body starts producing the required blood cell levels again). The main part that is 'new' when it comes to what I'm doing, is that it is new as a treatment for MS. The reason I cannot have this treatment at home is because it hasn't been 'proven' as an effective treatment for MS (as there is not yet 10-year follow-up trials with MS patients, etc). That's a rant I'll save for another time! Probably obviously, the past couple of months since my last post have been busy. I continued to be overwhelmed by people's generosity with the fundraising--the empathy and magnanimity from so many amazing people is so truly hea...