It's been quite some time since my last post and I'll have to keep this one short as it has only been 3.5 hours since I stepped out of the radiation lab and I am beginning to feel the effects of such. I received about 1 hour worth of full body irradiation in the last step prior to my bone marrow transplant (BMT). BMT occurs tomorrow morning around 1000--my son, a healthy 18 year old will step foot into the hospital around 0530 tomorrow and I'll follow at 0730. I will actually meet with him, take some photos prior to him setting foot into the PACU. While most are excited, and I can't say that I don't share in the excitement, it's more frightening than anything.
My entire immune system has been slowly chiseled away over the past four months and this transplant, with all the support of prayer and hope will eradicate my old immune system and be replaced with a new one--completely changing my blood type as well, from O-Positive to B-Positive. Many new hurdles and milestones will have to be met over the next 60 days, so the journey is still not halfway complete. We can say that my 'counts' (white/red blood cells, platelets, neutrophils) after being targeted by chemotherapy over the past four months recovered to higher levels than when I first entered the hospital in January. I was pretty sick and barely had an idea until the last weeks of December 2012 that I was sick when symptoms and complications began rearing its ugly head.
I really hope to one day sit down, and thoroughly explain my sickness (in laymen's terms), hell, I barely understand it as we learn something new every day.
I can't thank my family and friends enough for the support of prayers, thoughts, posts, messages, cards, letters and gifts over the past four months. It has been a large part of our healing and motivation to keep pressing forward.
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