What a Week

Well, what a week.

On Tuesday I was blessed to receive my bone marrow transplant, and so far everything has been a success.

Physically, the transplant was, in reality for me, just a ten hour transfusion, turning this

into this

One thing I didn’t expect, because I didn’t think about it, was that I gained about 15 pounds during the transplant, and my body became rather bloated, which is saying something. Then, since so much of it was, in fact, water, I ended up going to the bathroom about once an hour for 2 days. Yes – once an hour, all day and all night.

Since this followed a week of high dose chemo, my own bone marrow is steadily going inactive, which gives the donor marrow its opportunity to take over. Over the next few weeks we will then see signs of this happening, as my blood test numbers come back up, as usual after chemotherapy. Only this time it won’t be mine, which is good, given that my marrow has so recently shown a talent for making cancer.
Of course, success is not a given, and even if it happens, I have to live through the transition. And the biggest thing there is the logical fact that my new marrow will see this old body as foreign cells, and go to work trying to do what God made it to do. This is called graft versus host disease, or GVHD, and, as usual, my doctor and team are ahead of the game. As a result I’ve been taking drugs to prevent GVHD by IV ever since the transplant, and I will keep doing so for a long time.

Now I have to get used to going to the clinic at Northside every day, for at least the next month, so they can check my progress. I’m managing to get work done there, thanks to an understanding boss and a job that allows.

Thank you all for your prayers and good wishes – and watch here for more.