Complications.

 A week after the stem cell transplant, I started feeling sick, which is actually a good sign. It means that the new stem cells are doing their job. However, for me, it's not just feeling a little sick. I had an enormous amount of pain in my back, abdomen, legs, and arms. For the enormous pain I got medication such as Esketamine, Clonidine, Morphine, Lorazepam, you name it, and it still did not help enough.

The pain persists throughout the day, and it has been going on for several days. The pain just won't subside, and I also experienced these incredible, intense pain attacks that cause me so much pain that I cried and screamed, not knowing how to find relief, how to lie down or sit, and no matter what they do, there's hardly anything that helps.

 The doctors were unsure of the cause of the pain, so I underwent an MRI of my spine to see if there might be a nerve inflammation, but nothing abnormal was found. That's good news, of course, but we still don't know where the pain is coming from.

The next morning, I had a lumbar puncture. The lumbar puncture had to be done without anesthesia because I am receiving so many opioids, and it's not advisable to administer additional anesthesia as it could cause me to stop breathing. Fortunately, the lumbar puncture went quite well, and it wasn't painful at all. They collected 4 tubes of cerebrospinal fluid, which they will examine for viruses and infections that may be hiding in the brain.

First, they will look into the most common possibilities, and then the rare ones. So far, nothing unusual has been found.

There have been very difficult nights all week, with a lot of pain and extreme fatigue. After much deliberation by the doctors, they believed that it may be due to the medication I was receiving to prevent graft-versus-host disease. They will switch to a medication from a different drug family that doesn't have these pain side effects, in the hope that the pain will slowly subside.

After a couple of days there seems to be some gradual improvement in the pain, and both the doctors and the nursing staff are doing their utmost to help me through this and are incredibly kind to me. I, and also my parents and brother, find tremendous support in them!

Good News!
Then we also received some good news!
The donor cells seem to be doing their job very well, even faster than average.
At this point I hoped that the pain will continue to decrease, and the doctors said that if the pain medication can be tapered off, I may be able to go home soon! Of course, under strict conditions, as I am still very vulnerable.