Contents List

Contents list

Here's a list of all the pages that have been in the many iterations of this website. The site has been quite organic with the way it's changed as we've moved through our experiences, but for posterity it's worth having a list of pages.

The Index Page is the home page, and the current navigation hub.

Saskia's DBA summary was written as a synposis of the state of play in December 2006, just as the build up to the bone marrow transplant was quickening in pace.

The Overview Page is a must-read for anyone to understand Saskia's story as a whole. This site does not have much mention of the old life of nightly Desferal injections, nor of the IVF/PGD adventures which included two failed trips for Mum and Dad to Chicago, after which the UK law was changed to allow an attempt in the UK.

The Blog is the longest page by far, and if you want a real flavour of what it was like for us to go through a bone marrow transplant as a family then it's the thing to read. We wrote it with warts and all and it is quite personal, but we wanted to write it that way both as a record for ourselves and to communicate effectively with our family and friends during the process. The blog was merged from separate blogs originally written by Mum and Dad (and a little from Saskia).

There are several photo galleries on the site. The photo story gallery shows pictures from throughout Saskia's life. The family snaps gallery gives some nice pictures of the family in general. There's a gallery from August07 which was a time when Saskia was making a really positive transition from "special" transplant patient to "normal" member of the family. There's also a BMT gallery which shows many pictures from around the time of the transplant itself.

Saskia took over 1200 oral doses of medicine at home after she initially discharged. It was quite an effort for her and for the rest of the family, and was probably the thing in the whole experience which gave us the most negative surprises with how tough it was and the constant grind.

After Saskia's discharge their were many rules at home we were told to follow for the months until she was given the "all clear" that her immune system was up and running. We knew these rules inside out ourselves, but we wrote this list down for any people looking after Saskia (babysitters, family and the like).

The Carer Rota shows one of the many cuts of a rota which was used to organise people so that at least one adult was with Saskia 24 hours a day whilst she was staying in hospital. It gives a good taste of how Mum, Dad, Grandma and Grandad juggled the hospital stays whilst also keeping the rest of life running, including servicing George who was only an infant at the time.

The Home Schooling page was written when Saskia returned home and we wanted to structure her learning a little. It includes the 5 hours of home schooling which Saskia received from visiting teachers. The home schooling was very effective, and Saskia easily kept up with her peers in her regular school and since she returned she has done very well.

The Fun Stuff page gives links to some pages outside the site which Saskia liked. It's also got lots of jokes which family and friends sent to Saskia (many thanks for these).

The timeline page is only worth looking at to see our expectations before the transplant. As things panned out in reality we were more fortunate than this plan predicted, but it gives a good impression of the detail involved in the process.

In 2008 we did a presentation to the DBA UK conference about our experiences.

Nat's Cakes page is a photo gallery of some of Nat's cakes up to the middle of 2007. She has done many, many others since and in fact now works on commission for friends. Don't ask why it's on this site: it just seemed like somewhere to stick it!

Another interloper on this website is a page about a swarm of bees we had in our garden in 2008 and its collection.