On March 24, 2006 the wheels came off. I'd gone to my doctor to see why my finger was swollen. I hadn't injured it, hadn't been bitten by an insect. After a week of watching and waiting, I'd turned the mystery of this mundane symptom over to him to solve.
My regular doctor hadn't been there, so I saw the nurse practitioner. She examined my finger, asked a lot of questions, and said she wanted to do some blood work. She mentioned rheumatoid arthritis as a possiblity, a shot in the dark really.
The next day, my finger seemed a little better. Doesn't that always happen after you've finally given in and sought medical advice? It was a typical Friday, a day I usually don't work. I went for a morning run, thinking about what I'd wear to one of our favorite restaurants that night. My husband and I were meeting friends in Providence. I stopped by the neighborhood mah jong group and played a few rounds. Then my daughter called to say she'd meet me at the store where she'd picked out a prom dress. For an hour or so, I sat and watched tense interactions play out between teenager daughters and their mothers. I'd already decided that whatever Mariel had chosen, I was going to say it was beautiful, even if I thought another dress would be more so. Later, I would be very happy that we had not tussled over something so minor as a prom dress.
We returned home. I got the mail and checked in with the boys. It was a typical late-March day: cold, gray, cruel. My backyard had no color. The phone rang. It was my doctor, apologizing for calling. He'd prefer to see me in person but he'd just received my lab results and had already left the office. I began to tense a little but didn't have time to rachet up my anxiety to the level necessary to hear what he said next. Acute leukemia, no doubt, something, something, white cells, something, something blasts, I'm sorry. I sat down and stared out the window at the lifeless landscape. I thanked the poor man and hung up. My husband walked in, and although I wanted to save him from the terrible news, I couldn't: I have acute leukemia. An oncologist would be calling soon.
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Adirondack Mountains, Feb. 2007
Tale of a Cord Blood Transplantee Who Relapses and Goes on to Have a Matched Unrelated-Donor Transplant
The Weight
Adirondack Mountains, Feb. 2007
ABOUT ME
In March 2006, I was diagnosed with a blood cancer called Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML). Life as I knew it came to a crashing halt. After enduring a month in the hospital where I received intense chemotherapy, I was declared "in remission." I had three additional treatments and remained cancer-free until May 2007, when I relapsed.
My only shot at survival was to have a stem cell transplant. However, my brothers' immune markers didn't match mine, and an international search of bone marrow registries found no perfect matches. A transplant using the blood from two umbilical cords was recommended. I grasped at this straw in September 2007. It seemed to work.
This blog tells the story of my transplant and recovery, replete with outrageous slings and arrows. The expression "blood is thicker than water" has new meaning for me. I remained alive due to the blood of strangers, two of them, both male. Thanks guys.
The plot thickened when I relapsed 19 months into my new remission and had to go through the same rigamarole once more. This time, I received stem cells from a matched adult donor who was identified last go round but didn't fit into the necessary time frame. Charles Dickens could have fun with this, the stuff of pulp fiction.
I remain in remission 4 years later. My donor keeps leukemic cells in check but finds interesting ways to attack my body. Chronic graft versus host disease keeps me firmly entrenched in the medical world. And so it goes.
My only shot at survival was to have a stem cell transplant. However, my brothers' immune markers didn't match mine, and an international search of bone marrow registries found no perfect matches. A transplant using the blood from two umbilical cords was recommended. I grasped at this straw in September 2007. It seemed to work.
This blog tells the story of my transplant and recovery, replete with outrageous slings and arrows. The expression "blood is thicker than water" has new meaning for me. I remained alive due to the blood of strangers, two of them, both male. Thanks guys.
The plot thickened when I relapsed 19 months into my new remission and had to go through the same rigamarole once more. This time, I received stem cells from a matched adult donor who was identified last go round but didn't fit into the necessary time frame. Charles Dickens could have fun with this, the stuff of pulp fiction.
I remain in remission 4 years later. My donor keeps leukemic cells in check but finds interesting ways to attack my body. Chronic graft versus host disease keeps me firmly entrenched in the medical world. And so it goes.
2 comments:
I hate that the date of my diagnosis is also indelibly imprinted on my brain. I can't remember what I had for dinner 2 days ago, but I can tell you down to the last detail what I was doing on January 9, 2007. It's behind you now and you have so much to look forward to.
Ann
All I can say is so trite but I'll say it anyway....What an amazing, frightening, enlightening, eye opening, exhausting, exhilarating...well you get the idea....journey....I log in to check on you and it reminds me to live every day.. and even appreciate the snow shovelling and dull times so ... Thank you for sharing it all...That seems like a very wierd thing to say!
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