Words of Hope – Balancing Act

Oct 2008 versus Oct 2013

As I mentioned in the September blog, it was a weird time of recovery.  I had received the FLAM treatment in August and spent September getting better and getting ready for a bone marrow transplant.  I was visiting Hopkins everyday and having my blood “checked”.  In September I was receiving blood transfusions and platelet transfusions.  In late September, I was getting stronger and my body was producing blood again, which is good and bad.   Good that I was still “working” and  bad because my bone marrow was going to relapse back to leukemia at some point very soon.   It was a race between getting healthy enough to have a bone marrow transplant and the leukemia coming back.  Leukemia returning would be a complete disaster and likely mean the story would not end well.  That said, it looked like we were getting very close to the transplant.

Then the next curve ball came, which was more like a 100 mph fast ball to the temple…  My donor was sick.  He had bronchitis and his marrow was no longer good enough for transplant.  I have leukemia and he has the nerve to get sick…  Things were not aligning and my blood was rebuilding in my body.  To stave off the return of leukemia and in lieu of a bone marrow transplant, I would have to endure a third round of chemotherapy.  In early October, I took a quick eight day cycle of chemo to head off the leukemia and keep me in remission.  I had faired reasonably well through most of the treatments to this point.  After round three I started to fail.  Things were not good; no donor, more chemo, no transplant, no shot….