Process

I was writing out an email to some of my family explaining the process of the transplant and thought perhaps some of you might like to know as well. 

There's no "surgery" involved, everything will be administered via IV (ie, my "whiskey tube").  I can't exactly remember the details, but the nurse told us about the process during our family meeting quite a few months ago.   The basic logistic is that they'll be giving me high dose chemo for a few days, rest for a day, then give me some other drugs before they'll administer the actual bone marrow into me, and the day they do that will be counted as Day Zero (my rebirth).  Depending on my condition, they'll keep me in the hospital from a month to 3 months, nobody knows 'cause everybody's reaction is different.  The first 100 days are the most crucial and also most vulnerable.  Risk of rejections and infections is extremely high and they'll be giving me a host of drugs to do battle with.  Now since my donor is not related to me, that risk is even higher still.  In addition to that, I think the match is "only" 80%.  I mean, it's really not bad of a match as far as non related donor is concern, but it's not 100% either.  So there's just that much more risk involved.  Not to sound grim or anything, the doctor did tell us that the survival rate of this transplant is 70 - 80%, so 20 - 30% chance I may not survive this.  And ultimately the outcome of "cure" rate of only 40 -50%, however without the transplant, my survival rate is less than 10%.  But what do you do other than putting one foot in front of the other and take it one step at a time, right?  I can't just Not do the transplant, right?  It's gonna be hellish couple of months perhaps even more, but in the end it's gonna be ok. It's just gots to be. Like one of my nieces says, those numbers are just numbers, they don't necessarily mean everything. 

Sent from my iPhone