16. Cycle Time

Advance Australia Fair - Ant, Dawsie and I before the Aussie v Brazil World Cup Match
Scottish Sunset - 10:30pm
Inspirational - Karen's Nana and Papa celebrating their 60th Wedding Anniversary at our house
Bournemouth - Jen, Kas, Ish and Amy on our trip last weekend to the English South Coast
St Andrews - Me overlooking the 1st Green at St Andrews Old Course

The morning wasn't the nicest, but when we turned up for the start of the Anthony Nolan bike ride up to Loch Lomond the clouds seemed to part and let the sun light up the track. Most cyclists were donning the skin tight bike shorts, shirt and aerodynamic helmet...I felt slightly out of place milling around in my boardies, t shirt and 'ice cream bucket' bike helmet. Funny how I only drew attention to myself when I decided to look like a 'cyclist', pull the pump out to give the tyres some air and accidentally let them all down when the tube wouldn't click on... It was a good day regardless! Mhairi and I cruised up in a tidy 1 hour 45 minutes, not bad for an Aussie with Leukaemia...

The week leading up to the ride had been pretty hectic too after finding I had a matched bone marrow donor. The story in one of the Scottish papers spoke of my good luck in finding a donor and how easy it now is to become one...all good press for my cause. I was then surprised to hear Scottish TV calling me up to run something on the night's news, just before the Aussie World Cup match! They took some shots to run over the story, one of me on my bike that made me realise I needed to put the handlebars up (looked like a giant riding a kids bike)...then they shocked us by announcing it would be a live broadcast from our pad, just me and Kas with earphones and live questions from the presenters! It then followed by a request to talk with BBC Radio on becoming a donor and the ride I was about to undertake. Funny stuff. The work has now dried up, I hope I'm not a has-been!

Anyway, here come the PCR test results (very sensitive blood tests) that got given to me today. As I was at a lazy 7% at 6 months, the reason I had this latest test was to see what would happen if I stopped my other medication. I have only come down to 5%... Still not the result the docs are looking for (and me) but it's good to see it is still moving in the right direction and the number is getting smaller every time. My 9 month test will happen on 19th July so fingers crossed it keeps moving down. The burger diet may be slowing the medication process down a little...

Since then, everything seems to be speeding up and leaving me with less time every day. I've been putting my head down and working as hard as I can...I've been trying over the past couple of months at work to lose the tag of 'Matt with Leukaemia'. I think it's starting to show that I can still do everything I did before, even though I get a little more tiredness, but it's important for me to still hit the targets set out for me. Work seems to keep my mind off everything else and is giving me a real focus, something to look to the future for.

Good news for the Sinclair Clan is the arrival of my brother Nick and Claire's little baby boy, Hayden William Sinclair. He's a good looking little man, takes after his uncle in the looks department (hung like his old man) and is doing very well...

We have also become proud owners of our first house! We had been interested in Karen's Aunt Liz's house in Glasgow for a wee while now and after the offer went in on Friday, it has been accepted - leaving us with a set of keys to our new pad! I'm really loving that Kas is as happy as I am to move forward with our life together...it means alot to me that we both are as positive as each other and that we can both see the best out of any situation. We will hopefully be moving end of August or early September...only happens to be the same time we have booked a trip to Berlin for a few days, my bike ride from Glasgow to Edinburgh and shortly followed by Karen's commencement of her new job. So some good news with the PCR tests will make these coming months a little easier to handle.

I'm due in for another hospital check up tomorrow. This will give me my blood results and I'm sure it'll progress into a discussion on whether to go ahead with a transplant at this stage. The Gleevec (CML meds) results seem to be getting better by the day but although there are significant risks in a transplant, it's hard not to think of what life would be like with a cure. Imagine being able to look back at life and say 'I used to have Leukaemia'...