My cancer starts in the bone marrow. Cells which are supposed to develop into good white cells in my blood – those make up the immune system – had obtained some mutation along the line and gone rogue. They grow uncontrollably and spill over into my blood, taking up the space of functioning cells. In my case, they also spilled into a clump in my chest, which is how I discovered my condition in the first place.
The disease is systemic, so I needed treatment that is also systemic and attacks the whole body. Which meant high-dose chemo.
I received my first round of chemo, what the doctors called induction, in December 2017. It was supposed to knock down my cancer, which at that point already made up half of my white blood cells. The end goal was to put me into remission, meaning the cancer is undetectable in my blood and marrow.
Then came two more rounds of chemo, called consolidation. The goal of these was to keep me in remission, so that preparations could be made for the final step, the “culmination” of my treatment. That thing that was hopefully going to cure me.
The first three rounds of chemo were successful, and everything was in place for me to get a stem cell transplant. My brother was tested and turned out to be a full match, perfect to become my donor. He came to the US and passed a bunch of other health tests. And I was in remission and in good shape.
The process started with another round of chemo, this time extra strong. This extra push was needed to virtually wipe out my marrow and make space for my brother’s cells. While the chemo sucked, the transplant itself was very easy. On May 9, the nurses came in and hung the bag of stem cells up on my IV pole, and I received them over 20 minutes, just like a normal blood transfusion. The nurses called that day my second birthday.
My brother, on the other hand, had to go through more. He had to take a special type of medication for a week which stimulated stem cell growth in his marrow, so that they could make their way out to his blood stream, to be collected later for the donation. It was like the opposite of chemotherapy. His collection was also 6 hours long, quite a bit more than my infusion.
But that was it. My blood cell counts were drained by the chemotherapy, so I had to wait in the hospital for a couple of weeks after the transplant, but eventually I went home. What lay ahead was supposed to be a year of limitations (only eat homemade food, avoid crowds, etc.), but also a year of calm. I had high hopes that what I had just gone through was really a ‘bump in the road’.
I should have known that with cancer, it’s never that easy. A lot of times, ‘situation normal’ has to be followed by ‘all fucked up’.
Just another chapter 