For those of you who don't know, it was a gamble to go through with the bone marrow transplant. The trouble was that my chemotherapy was not working as fast or effectively as the doctors had planned. That combined with the inconclusive data on whether I had "Mixed Lineage Leukemia" - a far worse chance of survival - was enough for me to take the risk.
What are the risks of a bone marrow transplant?
They are often referred to as GVHD (Graft Versus Host Disease). In a nut shell, this means that the donor marrow doesn't recognize me and decides to attack. With a peripheral blood stem cell transplant (that's what I received) counts may recover faster but there is increased incidence of GVHD.
Graft versus host disease has two phases; acute, which occurs within 100 days of the transplant, and chronic, which is recognized after 100 days following the transplant. Acute GVHD can affect the GI tract, liver, and skin (we believe my stomach issues have been the result of this). Chronic GVHD can affect nearly every organ in the body! There is about a 50% chance I will be affected by chronic GVHD; to what extreme is indeterminable. It can also be manifest in endocrine abnormalities, infertility, memory loss, concentration issues, and secondary malignancies (tumors).
That is the reality of what I am facing. So what's the good news? For one thing, I'm alive! I thank God every day for this. It is truly a blessing and a miracle. It really makes you think about what's important, and cherish every moment. I wrote this song while I was in the hospital in June. I was in one of those "meaning of life" moods. Just click on "The Story" if you want to listen.
Since we reviewed all the scary GVHD stuff I think it's only fair to mention some of the positive benefits from the transplant. For example, I won't have to pump anymore toxic chemotherapy drugs through my body; whereas my initial treatment protocol required years of chemo. Another plus is that the donor cells are prone to fight off any residual cancer that may be hiding out (or if it ever tries to come back).
Speaking of that, my 100 day check up is coming up on Sept 14th. Technically it will have been 105 days since my transplant but who's counting right? This is when they will test the ratio of my chimerism (how much of my bone marrow is me and how much is the donor) as well as if the cancer is still in remission. Keep your fingers crossed (where did that phrase come from anyway) and we will plan for a good graft and continued remission!
Charles Panati, in Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, has a nice article on crossing one's fingers as a sign of luck or making a wish. He traces it back to pre-Christian times, when the cross was a symbol of unity and benign spirits dwelt at the intersection point. A wish made on a cross was a way of "anchoring" the wish at the intersection of the cross until the wish was fulfilled.
ReplyDeletePanati says this superstition was popular among many early European cultures. It originally took two people. A comrade or well-wisher placing his index finger over the index finger of the person making the wish, the two fingers forming a cross. The one person makes the wish, the other empathizes and supports. Over centuries, the custom was simplified, so that a person could wish on his own, by crossing his index and middle fingers to form an X. But traces remain--two people hooking index fingers as a sign of greeting or agreement is still common in some circles today.
Panati comments, "Customs once formal, religious, and ritualistic have a way of evolving with time to become informal, secular, and commonplace." Thus, friends crossing fingers evolved (Panati says "degenerated") to crossing one's own fingers, and ultimately to the stock phrase, "Keep your fingers crossed," with no actual finger-crossing at all.