The Bois Blanc Island Site

Cindy Childs · Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:02 pm Post subject: Leukemia and BMT's

Hi everyone. Gary and I thought we would be living in paradise by now but life intervened the week before Memorial Day and Gary was diagnosed and hospitalized that Friday with Acute Mylogenus leukemia. After a week of Induction Chemo, we were changed to Persistant AML. And trasferred to U of M Hospital in Ann Arbor for transplant. What we thought would be a 6 week process is longer. He has a donor, but the catch is staying infection free with no immune system to be eligible for his BMT, we have a perfect match with his brother as the donor. So now comes the help question. Do any of you have any experience with this? Talk about new frontiers, the whole process seems to change on a daily basis. Some days are filled with hope and promise and others doom and gloom. If all goes well, he will get a BMT in the next 2 - 3 weeks and then maybe we can be on BBI for Oct/Nov. and have life after BMT. Prayers are more than welcome! We have had a lot of divine moments this summer.

IslandDeer · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:19 am Post subject: sorry

so sorry to hear this..

prayers are going your way

Pharmer Lana · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 5:03 am Post subject:

I know a few people who have been touched by leukemia. While raising money for that fundraiser run, I was fortunate to meet some truly amazing individuals who endured scary/tough times.

I also know that a bone marrow transplant is the only chance for cure. One friend of mine with aplastic anemia required the process to be performed twice. That was over ten years ago though. Her donor came from the other side of the world - a man completely unrelated.

Another friend (a neighbor from lansing) was 6 yrs post transplant when I knew her. She found out she had leukemia after giving birth to her son. Her donor was not a relative and she developed mild graft-versus-host disease. She continued to be susceptible to infections, but lived a happy life raising her son, tolerating any side effects as annoyances.

Has there been any mention of Philadelphia chromosome? This is usually associated with CML or ALL, but the bonus of being Philadelphia chomosome positive is that there are a few drug options (taken orally daily) that are usually effective in keeping the cancer from proliferating.

One fact to keep in mind when faced with this type of threat is that leukemia is not a death sentence. I will also pray for you and Gary.

I will check to see if I have kept contact info. Also, you will likely meet others in your predicament when you travel to Ann Arbor.