Hi, I’m home.

The worst is behind me — everything worked out.

The new bone marrow is taking hold, my counts have started to rise quickly, and I was discharged yesterday. Though I was warned not to get too excited about the word “discharge”: my condition is still far from being called healthy :)

It took only 13 days from the day of the transplant for me to be able to leave the isolation room. That was possible partly thanks to some special medications that, for example, aren’t available in Belarus. I’ve heard that people there sometimes have to stay isolated for up to three months after a transplant because they lack these supportive drugs (filgrastim). It’s really sad if that’s true. Once again over these two years, I’m deeply grateful to have ended up here.

But you probably want to know how it all went :)

So, on the first day after admission, everything started with the placement of a central catheter. The procedure is very unpleasant — they basically insert two connected tubes, each about 15 centimeters long, into a vein in your neck. I’d had one put in before, last summer, when they collected my stem cells, so the second time wasn’t as scary, but still unpleasant because I already knew exactly what it would feel like. Local anesthesia, some weird sensations when you feel something being cut inside you. But the goal justifies it — it saves the veins in your arms, and afterward any IV drip or blood test is simply connected to the catheter. Honestly, I was thrilled about this option, because last year, every two weeks (sometimes more often), so many needles went into my arms that finding a usable vein became harder and harder. They literally “search” for it by poking the needle around under your skin. So yeah — central catheter for the win 😄

On the second day, conditioning chemo began. For a week, every morning and evening, they poured all sorts of drugs into me. All unpleasant, but overall, that first week could be summed up as “getting into condition.” It was more boring than bad: some nausea, a bit of bodily confusion, but actually easier than some of the previous rounds of chemo I’d had. The whole point was that these drugs have a cumulative and delayed effect, so that by transplant day, everything inside is ready for what needs to happen.

There was one very hard day, though. On the first day of chemo, one of the drugs was mixed with alcohol — and all of it, of course, went straight into my veins. If I had to describe the feeling, it’s like having food poisoning and the flu at the same time, and deciding to go to a bar and drink four beers on top of it — something like that :) Even anti-nausea meds barely helped, but thankfully it lasted only one day, and the next drugs were more humane.

I already had a rough idea of what was coming next (thanks to a friend who went through it a year before me). Still, it was scary — the sensations were new, strange, unpleasant. I have to say, the medical staff were amazing: they supported me, answered every question kindly, helped out, joked, cared — even in the middle of the night if something went wrong.

So, a week passed. I still felt relatively okay. They gave me the final drug — melphalan. That’s the main boss. It’s administered on the last day before the transplant to completely “burn out” the bone marrow and make space for new cells. It came in a small 200-gram bag that dripped into me for about 15–20 minutes — and that was it. Then one rest day before the transplant. At first, you don’t feel anything; I went to bed peacefully. But that night, a strange sensation woke me up. It wasn’t pain, or weakness — more like some dark void inside me, humming and spreading, sucking me down, pressing me to the ground. It even has its own characteristic sound — if you see me, ask, I’ll try to imitate it. That night I realized: this is where the descent begins.

On transplant day, that feeling eased a bit. I was alert, though my intestines had already started hinting they were temporarily out of service :)

The transplant itself is actually quite a sweet event: they brought in two small bags of my luxurious stem cells and even complimented me on how many I had produced. They hooked them up like an IV drip. I chatted with the nurse and doctor — forty minutes, and done. My cells were home again.

And that same day I had a little celebration: for my immune system’s birthday, my friends had sent me letters to the hospital! It felt like Christmas — unwrapping them, reading, smiling, feeling happy. It was such a bright and unusual day :)

But the real “fun” begins after the transplant. As my friend warned me:

“The whole trick is that you don’t feel the main effects of chemo right away — it kicks in with a delay. And the stem cells you’re given also don’t start engrafting immediately — maybe after a week if you’re lucky. So for the first week after the transplant, you feel all the chemo effects in full color, while your body has zero resources left to regenerate.”

That’s exactly how it went. Almost no energy, no appetite, constant nausea — yet you have to force yourself to eat, sometimes unsuccessfully because the soup decides not to stay long. You call the nurse — another dose of antiemetics, wait fifteen minutes, and try again.

All the mucous membranes — mouth, throat, esophagus — get inflamed. Every swallow feels like a knife, even drinking water hurts, not to mention food. By day five, regular painkillers stopped working, and they switched me to morphine. It still hurt, but at least I could sleep.

And I was so glad I’d brought protein shakes — they saved me. Easy to drink, gentle on the throat, and no awful smell to trigger nausea. A real lifesaver — I don’t know how I’d have managed without them. Another good trick, courtesy of my doctor: stock up on baby food. That helped a lot too — sometimes I’d wake up in the night, feel hungry, and sense a tiny window of “okayness,” and I made sure not to waste those moments.

The intestines were also rebelling. Very little energy, hard to move, yet every two hours at night I’d get up to rinse my mouth and try to help myself somehow. Endless IV drips — thankfully now mostly supportive ones.

And when my counts dropped too low, I had my first-ever plasma and platelet transfusions. The platelet one was even a bit funny: the doctor came in the morning and told me my platelets were so low I shouldn’t get up or walk around because if I fell or got hurt, I could start internal bleeding and they wouldn’t be able to save me. The transfusion was scheduled for the afternoon — so I lay very still, anxious, and waited. Watching those little bags during the transfusion was strange — knowing bits of other people (several, actually) were entering me. But I was grateful — I truly needed them.

Anyway, there were many more unpleasant little adventures. But enough horror stories :)

Strangely, the hardest physical days were somehow easier to bear — you just curl up and drift in and out of sleep all day. The worse were those moments when a little energy returned — just enough to feel restless, but not enough to actually do anything: head heavy, body twisting, unable to lie, sit, or walk comfortably. You just feel awful, wanting to crawl out of your own skin.

But about a week after the transplant, I started feeling lighter. That too happened at night: I woke up realizing I’d slept differently — more peacefully, calmly. And inside, warmth was returning — strength, light.

From then on, each day got better. I became braver with food, things began to heal and recover.

The last five days were quiet and gentle — I was smiling again, even to myself. Sleeping sweetly, waking pleasantly (though I now wake up at six a.m. like an old man). There’s something wonderful in feeling like you’ve pushed off the bottom and can sense that unstoppable vector upward. My body knows what it needs — it’s fiercely reaching for it, soaking up energy.

And then I stepped out of the room for the first time in three weeks — like a cat being taken out of its carrier. Eyes wide, looking at all the open space and the people in the corridor. Amazing, but also a little unsafe.

Those were truly hard weeks. But I made it.

Thanks to my family and friends who called every day, encouraging me even if they didn’t fully understand what was happening to me.

And I really do feel wonderful — as much as possible. I’m so happy that I actually feel this energy and warmth inside, because I’d feared I might spend the next weeks or months as a shadow of myself. But no — I’m writing this with a clear head, lifted spirits, and warmth in my soul. Sure, I still have very few immune cells, and the ones I do have don’t yet have memory. Sure, there are months of strict diet and isolation ahead. But I’m happy to be in the comfort and warmth of a familiar place. I may still be peeking at the world through a narrow slit — but I’m home. I’ve come back. Renewed, and I think, already healthy in the one way that matters most.

I turned on my old speakers (thankfully, Lyosha disinfected everything in advance). I’ve already listened to some jazz and ambient music… my eyes drift to the piano — feels like tomorrow I might want to play something :)

And while I was in the hospital, I managed to talk with a journalist — and during the days when I was at my lowest, an article came out on Radio Free Europe. I share a few reflections on life there — maybe a bit of self-observation and a glimpse of what I’m living through now. Give it a read:

https://www.svaboda.org/a/33562759.html

Once again, thank you all for your support — it’s been a crucial part of my inner peace these past months <3