I'll be that guy and revive a really old post.
Some of you may know what's been going on if you know me on facebook or twitter, but I thought an update here makes sense too.
After my wife was declared in remission from her round of chemo, a biopsy 6 months later revealed the cancer had come back. Due to the type of cancer and how it was behaving, her doctors put her on the fast track to have a stem cell bone marrow transplant.
She went through about 3 months of strong chemo treatments (4 days in the hospital every 2 weeks) to kill the cancer and lay the groundwork for the transplant.
On May 13th she was admitted to City of Hope which is a regional cancer research hospital (sort of like Roswell in Buffalo). Getting a bone marrow transplant is, to put it lightly, hard core.
They plan on a month long hospitalization and that's what it took for her.
She got massive doses of chemo and radiation her first week there which basically kills all cancer along with all bone marrow and consequently her immune system.
They had initially planned to do an auto-stem cell transplant where they would use her own stem cells to rebuild her bone marrow and immune system, but they found a genetic problem that would prevent that possibility, so she needed a donor.
We got very lucky and her little brother was a perfect match (a 25% possibility) so he donated the stem cells for her transplant.
Once her immune system was gone and her white blood cells were down to a dangerous level she got the transplant. Once they take hold, she began to produce her brother's blood, with her brother's DNA and start to grow her brother's immune system (along with his allergies etc). It's pretty fascinating stuff.
In the hospital she was treated like a bubble boy...everything was sterile, we had to wear masks and gloves to visit her...I haven't been able to kiss her since she went in...she wasn't able to touch our 2 year old for over a month.
But, she recovered on schedule and she's out of the hospital now and back at home. She has to wear a mask when she goes out or when she's around the kids because the smallest infection could put her back in the hospital. She has the immune system of a baby right now. It doesn't know hoe to fight anything. We still have to be ultra-cautious for the first 100 days and cautious for the first year.
It's been a rough few months. Taking care of 2 kids and a wife full time is enough, never mind work.
In an odd turn of events that's actually a good thing, AOL decided to close the department I work for so I'm out of a job pretty soon. Although that's allowed me the time I need to take care of all this.
I eat stress for breakfast. Ooooh yeah.
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