The timetable, if all goes to current plan, is:-

On Friday 21st Sept Liz will start on relatively high doses of a chemo drug (Cyclophosphamide), smaller does of which she has been taking for the last four months as part of her regular treatment. This will have the effect of "loosening" her stem cells, and another drug, injected via a semi-permanent needle will free them off and allow them to flow in her blood stream.

Unfortunately, the chemo drug will also cause the one thing Liz was worried about - hair loss. We are going to have to look at wigs, and anyone who has any experience of such things would be welcome to let us have any pearls of wisdom they may have garnered. (I personally fancy waist length blonde, but that suggestion isn't going down too well). So - Liz is preparing herself for that.

Then, about 10 days later, October 1st is the date booked, she will attend a clinic in Nottingham where they will test to see how many stem cells she has floating about, and if there aren't enough, she will be given another "loosener" and sent home again.

When there are enough, she will be sat beside a machine through which her blood will be pumped, and a centrifuge will extract any available stem cells. In the unlikely event that enough are harvested on the first day, that will be that, but it is much more likely that the procedure will be repeated on the following three or four days.

This is going to be difficult logistically as we have to get to the hospital in north Nottingham for 9:00 in the morning. With rush hour to contend with that would mean leaving home between 7:00 and 7:30 to be safe, which would not be easy. Fortunately the hospital has a "patient hotel" which we can use, so we will probably head over there the evening before, and stay the night. What a good idea.

Once enough stem cells have been harvested there is a wait of about a fortnight, then Liz is admitted for the transplant treatment. This should be around the third week of October. During this the nurse said Liz will feel "pretty bad for a few days". Not good, and she will need all the best wishes she can get.

There is some good news though, the need for clinical isolation is nowhere near as great as we had been anticipating. An idea of the level required is indicated by the fact that "you can bring books in, but we prefer you bring new books rather than old ones".

This means that Liz can have her phone, iPad and Kindle, and that visitors are allowed every day. The hours are 14:00 to 20:00 which we can manage quite well. I doubt I will be there for the full 6 hours, but I only have to travel once a day, I should be able to avoid traveling during rush hour, and I can get home in time for something to eat. So that will help.

Once the transplant is done, Liz should be home by early November. She will feel poorly and weak, but will slowly recover over the next six months (a period we hadn't been expecting) which takes us up to next May and just about 14 months.

As she will have completely new bone marrow, she will also have the immune system of a newborn - something else we hadn't anticipated - which will mean all those childhood vaccinations again, and probably more besides.

So - that is how we understand things will work, but it is unlikely that events will unfold exactly as I have described them. It does seem likely though, that by May we can hope that Liz will have all this behind her.