After a whirlwind five-day trip, I'm home and feeling great. My oncologist doesn't want to see me for 3 months and I don't want to see him.
I watched my son compete in the Ivy League Championships at Princeton, NJ. He goes on to the East Regionals in North Carolina in 2 weeks. We stayed with my sister and brother-in-law Saturday night and went for Mexican food, it being Cuatro de Mayo. I love mole! Sunday night we had dinner with Roxi and Mike and their daughter Erin at an Italian restaurant in Park Slope, Brooklyn. That night and for the next 3 nights we stayed with Sandy and Dianne in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, our old and remarkably changed neighborhood.
On Monday we rested a bit. I walked with Di to Target. Marty got a Not-Ray's pizza for lunch. Sandy made dinner. On Tuesday we went to MSK for my bloodwork, inoculation (for meningitis,) and to see the doc who pronounced me looking better than in a long time. I even lost 8 lbs! To celebrate all the good news I went to my Korean spa and had the works: manicure, pedicure and a 20-minute massage.
Tuesday night I made Shrimp Pad Thai for dinner. We'd invited old friends Peter and Mecca at the last minute and they joined us for a lovely evening. The topic of soft shell crabs came up and Peter offered to make them for lunch the next day before we headed out of town. He couldn't get crabs but made a lovely fish stew with green salad and white wine. I slept on the car ride home. Must have been the wine.
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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.
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