The stages before the transplant are very important for the success of the eventual transplant. It is important to understand the risks and the suffering that will take place in both the operation itself and the weeks after the operation. Receiving a transplant can be an extremely harrowing time and should be fully accepted before undertaking a transplant.

When meeting your consultant or surgeon it is important to understand the risks and all that is associated with what you are going through. It is also important to realise the arduous and painful process your donor may have gone through to ensure you can have a stem cell transplant as removing bone marrow from a donor is an extremely painful process.

You will receive information about the chemotherapy or total body irradiation you will undergo before the transplant itself which is called the preparative regimen or conditioning regimen. These treatments will destroy diseases cells in your body. During this period you will either be admitted to the hospital or treated in an outpatient clinic depending on your circumstances. The preparative regimen usually takes between four and ten days.

Meetings before the day of the transplant will also explain that engraftment - the process of your new stem cells producing healthy blood cells - can take up to five weeks depending on the type of transplant you received. If it was a transplant from bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells engraftment will usually take two to three weeks but for cord blood this can take anywhere between three and five weeks.