PLUCKY Mick Baines today sat up in his hospital bed just five days after a life-saving bone marrow transplant and said: "Today is the first day of the rest of my life."

Mick, 41, had waited more than three years for the operation since he was first diagnosed with leukaemia.

Now the next three weeks are crucial to his recovery as his shattered immune system recovers and his body accepts the new bone marrow.

But he has his wife Julia and son Andrew at his bedside, as well as the expert doctors and nurses at the Christie Hospital, Manchester, to help him on the road to recovery.

He said: "I don't feel too bad, probably at about three on a scale of one to 10. I just can't wait to get home now -- I think it is because it is Christmas."

Before undergoing the potentially life-saving procedure, Mick had to undergo weeks of painful chemotherapy to kill off as many bad blood cells as possible -- taking his immune system with them. He said: "The doctors have said my immune system has to go down a bit more before it hits rock bottom and then it can start to go up again. They are leaving the bone marrow alone for about two weeks and then they will inject me with drugs to kickstart it. Because my donor bone marrow is perfect, it should get rid of any bad cells that have been left."

Because Mick is so susceptible to infection, he is being kept in isolation and can only have one visitor at a time, either his wife or sonwife Julia or son Andrew.

But wife Julia has been videoing and photographing his progress and keeping in touch with friends and supporters near the couple's home in Bolton Road, Abbey Village.

She said: "I can't believe what he has been through. A course of antibiotics can make anybody's stomach upset, but Mick has had chemotherpay, antibiotics, anti-rejection drugs, anti-bascterial drugs and he has more to come.

"The doctors have said he is doing well, but he will go through a bad patch before he gets better, but that is perfectly normal."

Mick is keen to meet the 26-year-old American woman, aged 26, who donated her bone marrow to help save his life through the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust.

But he has to wait two years and then it is up to the donor if she wants to meetcome face to face with Mick.

He said: "I would like to shake her hand and thank her for what she has done to help me."