Because I have so few white blood cells, my body decided to start cooking me from the inside. It started late on Friday, just after I watched my tuxedo-clad baby drive off to meet his date for the prom. Tempus fugit.
By Saturday morning I was back in the hospital, where I remain. Every 4 to 6 hours I spike a fever, despite being pumped with antibiotics and anti-fungals. No specific causes have been identified as responsible for the fevers. It's just that I'm in a state of neutropenia, low on infection-fighting cells, and my body's natural response is to use heat as a weapon.
Somehow, I manage to have an appetite and have been tolerating the hospital food. I am ruined.
Thanks everyone for following my story. I love reading your comments and emails. Any day now, blood cell production should kick in and these feverish days will be just a bad memory.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
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.
Blog Archive
-
▼
2009
(78)
-
▼
May
(17)
- Day at the Beach
- Goals for Today
- My Blood Pressure Also Rises
- Free, and Trying to Stay That Way
- Tortured Notes
- The PJFF Wants YOU!
- Jottings of the Day
- Hot Hot Hot
- Hemoglobin the Hard Way
- Navigating the Nadir
- Mellow Yellow
- Kafkaesque
- No Neutrophils
- Infinite Jest--What Would You Call It?
- All My Trials, Soon Be Over
- No Exit
- Temporarily Offline
-
▼
May
(17)
6 comments:
Keep eating those lemon ices to bring down your temperature. I'm sure there's some complicated equation floating around that determines the number of ices you have to eat in order to lower your temperature by X degrees. Chris probably knows it.
I have my fingers crossed that your counts will start coming up so you can get sprung from your gilded cage.
I could have written this post too...except for the appetite. Sorry you're in the hospital. Hope you get out soon.
Stay positive and keep fighting! You'll be home soon.
Did you mean your reputation was ruined because you had an appetite for hospital food? :)
All I can say is you must have been really hungry - or your body must really have needed some fuel!
Hope those white blood cells are starting to creep back in now.
You are much in my (our) thoughts Patty. I so which that we still lived nearby to help in some way...let us know if there is something we can do from afar. Fondly, Renee
Hope you can come home soon. I'm going to need some help figuring out this damn book,just when I think I figured it out the cats start speaking.I'm thinking of you.Jamie
Post a Comment