collection day

FROM CASSIE: Today was a big day and so much has brought us to this point. A lot has happened in the last 3 months and I'll try to be quick in summing it up. Being diagnosed with lymphoma on July 28th solved the mystery of the mysterious leg pain I had been feeling for much of this year. Since this particular lymphoma was aggressive, it had to be treated aggressively with in-patient chemotherapy until I was in remission and then a bone marrow transplant. After one full round of chemo which required 38 days (and long, sleepless nights) in the hospital I found out I was in remission on September 18th! My scans showed that the cancer, which had previously been in my leg and various lymph nodes, was gone. Many people require more than one round so I'm extremely lucky.... and grateful because chemo is not as fun as it sounds. And it doesn't sound fun.

Now on to the bone marrow transplant. While the chemo train was moving, the search for a donor was also in full swing. The first stop was my only sibling, my sister Carrie, who lives in Ohio. There's a 1 in 4 chance that a sibling will be a match. After a cross-country special delivery of blood for testing and a few weeks of high-tech matching, cross-matching and fancy scientific mumbo jumbo, we found out that she was a match for my marrow on September 18th, the same day we received the remission news. Quite a day! I was released from the hospital on September 24th and sent home to recover from the previous month and a half's events while waiting until preparations were in place for the transplant. And the biggest and most important preparation was getting my sister out to California ASAP. Which brings us back to today-- Collection Day!

My sister and I spent most of the day at the hospital while she underwent hemapheresis, a very fancy term meaning that for 3 hours her blood was circulated through a machine that separated out (or "collected") her wonderful, healthy stem cells that I will receive during my transplant. You gotta love modern medicine. I owe her big for this one. I'm not sure how I'll ever repay her, but I'll have plenty of time to think about it when I check back into my home away from home, UCLA Medical Center, next Monday, 10/26 for the transplant. Nice segue, right? I'll be there for at least a month to get a dab more chemo, a dash of radiation, then the transplant on Day 9 and a couple weeks (or more) for the cells to work their magic. Then I'll need a few months recovery and should be good as new. That's the plan.

Kurt and I will do our best to keep this blog updated through the remaining days of this not-so-fantastic voyage. We've been overwhelmed and humbled by the outpouring of support we've received from our families, friends, workplaces, neighbors, doctors, nurses. We're extremely grateful. Being diagnosed with cancer certainly wouldn't have been my first choice of methods for gaining a greater appreciation for life and those in it. But it sure is effective.

Thanks so much to all our family and friends who are helping us get by and get through.