Grateful Every Day 100%

As you may have heard my 100 day post transplant checkup went well! My cancer is still in 100% remission and my bone marrow is 100% donor. Wow that's a lot of hundreds! What does it mean?

It means that the chemotherapy and radiation that I underwent in preparation for my transplant did a good job of completely eradicating my bone marrow (and hopefully the cancer along with it). My donor's marrow has now engrafted and taken over the job of making blood cells, and it's doing pretty good too! My doctor advised that I am not expected to reach normal blood levels ever again, although they will improve over the next few months.

My MRI looked good - no traces of cancer or tumors in my brain. This is important because when chemotherapy was first being developed for leukemia patients they would reach remission but then die of brain tumors within about a year. 

You see there is a barrier between your cardiovascular system (your heart and blood vessels) and your central nervous system (your brain and spine). Although the cancer in the blood stream was being destroyed by injections of chemotherapy drugs it was still able to hide out in the brain. This is why I had to undergo so many lumbar punctures where they inserted chemo directly into my spinal fluid. I also had radiation shot directly at my brain as you may have read in previous posts. 

One interesting thing they discovered was that I have an "Arteriovenous Malformation" - meaning that the blood vessels in my brain are not formed in the usual pattern. This is not likely to cause any problems but is quite rare - not nearly as rare as my cancer - but yet another way that I am unique. I heard Einstein had it too... okay I made that up, but that would be cool right?

What else, what else... My lungs were just a tad weaker than they were prior to the transplant. This is expected, and is likely due to being confined to a bed and or a side effect from the radiation. My vision checked out just fine, and my chest x-ray and most my other tests appeared normal. My testosterone level was slightly low however, so for the next 6 weeks I get to juice up like a Major League Baseball player!

If you don't know that's Melky Cabrera. He got busted for using testosterone last month. Unfortunately I don't anticipate I'll be hitting any home runs soon - we're just going to try to get me back to normal - there go my dreams of getting Mark Mcgwire biceps... (sigh)

Honestly, I am just grateful to be alive everyday. Things look good right now, but that doesn't mean that I'm "out of the woods". In fact, I'll be in the woods for the rest of my life. The good news is I like nature :) Check out these gorgeous pictures from our family night "hike" this week.

I've had people tell me I'm brave or that they admire what I'm doing. I have to admit however that I don't feel like a "fighter" or anything like that. I didn't ask for this to happen, it just sort of happened. All I can do is take it one day at a time. I like what Jeffrey R. Holland said in conference a few years ago, "No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won't make it worse." I'll have to file that one away for Kezman when he's older ;) It's so true though, why worry or complain about things you can't change?

I heard somewhere (probably on facebook actually) that even when the "glass is half empty" it's really 100% full - just 1/2 air and 1/2 water - that's the way I like to see it!