I'm on vacation from my life. Five women and I are in a villa on Sea Island in Georgia. One of the women is in a program like a time share, so this costs us nothing. The connection among us is that we all lived in Costa Rica at some point. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
Skeet shooting, biking, kayaking and yoga are the activities of choice we've pursued so far. We've been making good food. There's no one to care for but ourselves. That's living.
My health issues have come with me, but I haven't been down in the dumps. I itch like crazy, and the water retention has reached epic levels. Even my eyes have been driving me nuts, despite getting a new PROSE lens. Debris is already settling on it, so I only get a few hours of clarity.
I've been sleeping well, sharing a bedroom with my old traveling buddy Judy. In our younger days, in Guatemala and Cuba, we didn't snore. Now we do. A little. It's been great sharing stories about our Costa Rica days and catching up on current life. I don't often speak about my Leukemia history, but these women have been asking me a lot of questions and I've convinced them to sign up to register to become donors.
The link always bears repeating: www.marrow.org
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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:
Sounds like a wonderful escape. Can't they do anything about the itching? In the hospital I had ad RX for itching: Atarax. It made me sleepy but what the heck. Have you tried Benadryl?
Lori and I went to nearby St Simons Island a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it; rather than so much new development along the coast of the Carolinas or Georgia, it's an old village on the coast.
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