The good new first. I was in the hospital for the transplant about a week, it seems to vary from a week to a month. From my BMB I am 100% engrafted with donor cells. Platelets had been 70, about 3 months ago they went up to 140 and stayed there. From looking at blood tests the only anomaly is that I have xx instead of xy chromosome. They talk about cure at 3 years. I am half way there. Doctor says the chance of relapse at this point is low single digit. The transplant was sort of a non event. I slept through the whole process. It is just the start of a long journey.
If you don’t want the bad news stop reading here. While the hospital stay was a week I was required to have a 24/7 care give for at least 3 months and to be with in 15 minutes of the hospital. The environment must be sterile to avoid infection as you have almost no immune system after transplant. For the first month I had hospital visits 7 days a week. At 3 months post transplant I came down with CMV, GVHD grade 4, and c.diff. It removed the entire gut lining so I couldn’t eat for my 2 month hospital stay. I went from 170 to 130 pounds and could barely walk. Doctors and nurses thought I would not survive. At 1 year I came down with a different GVHD. 1 month on 120 mg. prednisone along with a dozen other meds cured it, but left me pretty messed up and weak. I am pretty much over it and yesterday I walked 5 miles with no difficulty. If needed I would go through the transplant again.
Ray
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