Status Update: Oct. 2010

I went into the UMC hospital (University Medical Center) on Oct. 4th and came out on Oct. 29th.  A lot happened in-between.  Chemo started the first day, and I had multiple chemo treatments each day for 8 days.  Those were days 'minus 10' to 'minus 2' on my countdown calendar (this is described in the Transplant page).  Day 'minus 1' was an off day (no chemo), and then day Zero was, as it always is, the transplant day.  I was in the hospital for 18 days after that (days +1 to +18) until my blood cell counts came up high enough for me to be released.

During my stay in the hospital I was in a quarantined wing in a quarantined room.  There was only one other stem-cell patient on the wing with me, and she was out in two weeks because her myeloma only required two days of chemo.  I think the cycle before ours had eight transplant patients in the wing at once.  During that month in the hospital I ate almost nothing at all, and yet left weighing 15 pounds more than when I came in.  That difference was caused by fluid retention, and within 2 months of being off the IV fluid lines, I'd lost 50 lbs (between fluid loss and not eating for a month).  During that month in the hospital I had a pretty close call with dropping blood-pressure that seemed beyond the staff's control, but after a day in ICU, it was corrected.  During that month in the hospital, and for a couple of months after, I had severe mucositis (which played a big role in not eating).  That was bad.

While in the hospital I had a visit from one of the earliest bone-marrow transplant recipients (an 18-year cancer survivor) and we met again just recently.  He told me that when he had his transplant done, the odds of surviving the transplant itself was just 20% (which is unrelated to the odds for a full cure, which is disease dependent).  Five patients went into the wing during his cycle, but he's the only one who survived and left the hospital.  Now there's a 95% chance of surviving the process.  The small percent chance of mortality during the process is usually caused by organ failure (from the chemo and/or radiation) or catastrophic infection (caused by the compromised immune system).  My particular type of lymphoma is rare and my post-transplant odds of success are small; 20-25%.  So far it's looking good though.

A lot happened during that month - it was a very bumpy physical and emotional roller-coaster.  The details and the test break-downs are in the Transplant page.