Blood Cell Takeover

The second transplant on November 6th was a donor transplant from a 24 year old, European male. I was under the impression that the end result would be a mix of his and my blood cells but that's not the case. The medical staff has engineered my body to accept the new stem cells to take over completely. Eventually, 100% of my blood cells and immune system will be from the donor. 

There are three moments in time when they pull some of my bone marrow to test the progress of the blood cell takeover. This happens at day 28, 56 and 84 of the transplant. So far I have had one bone marrow aspiration on day 28. The goal at that stage is for the donor cells to be at 50% of the total. At 28 days, my donor cells made up 85% of the total which was a statistic that pleased my doctors very much. 

None of this looks very significant on paper but it is. The decision to go ahead with the second transplant comes with significant risk of terrible side effects including death but also gives hope of a near cure.  With each test that meets or exceeds expectations and with each morning that I wake up without a terrible rash or other signs of Graft versus Host Disease, my odds improve. That means this latest test result offers less chance of complications and more chance of going into long term remission.  

I'm certainly not out of the woods yet. Since today is day forty of a hundred day journey, 60% of my trip through the woods is still unknown. By the way, I enjoy the "woods" analogy. I grew up running and climbing the forests next to logging camps. I love the woods!  The next test on day 56 will happen around New Years Day. I can't wait! If it's good news, I'll celebrate. If it's bad news, I'll trust my medical team to fix it. Either way, I come out a winner!