A friend drove me to Rush University hospital in Chicago last Thursday. There I met the team which will supervise preparations for me to have a cell stem transplant. They propose to take my own cells, clean them up, kill everything but me, and then return the gleaming washed cells to my body. It all sounds like science fiction.
In preparation I will have two sessions of chemotherapy this coming week, and probably the same in early May. Once they have my rogue protein in some sort of retreat they can begin working on me.
It’s a nuisance that Chicago is two hours away, particularly as I am still wheel chair bound, unable to put weight on my broken right leg. I hope for better news about that when I see the orthopedic doctor on May 5. The nuisance factor is that the first stage of the treatment is out-patient, and I must either get someone to drive me there and back, or stay in an expensive hotel.
At first they will dose me with all sorts of potions, do a bone marrow autopsy, get the dentist to make sure I don’t have mouth infections, and then bring me in to install tubes above my heart. The tubes have three sections in order to give me concoctions and draw out and later return stem cells. Once the tube is in place they will harvest cells. Shortly afterwards I will be admitted to the hospital and put in isolation. Massive doses of chemo will be administered to kill any bad protein and for that matter anything much else. Then my cells will be returned. Because my immune system will be gone, I will be given all sorts of prophylactic drugs to ward off infection and after a week or so drugs to stimulate the production of white blood cells. Thus begins the healing process.
Three weeks later I will be released after receiving anti-pneumonia drugs. The next few weeks will be spent in virtual isolation at home until the time comes when I am assessed to be healthy and strong. If all goes well my disease will be gone. Waldenstrom’s is a rare cancer and thus there’s not the amount of clinical work and evidence about treatment. However a new procedure is now being used which gives hope of a complete recovery, or at least for some years.
I look forward to the next few months with hope, excitement and trepidation. It is tough being alone and tackling all this. But the doctor and nurse practitioner at Rush U couldn’t have been more thorough or more encouraging. So do pray for me. I intend to blog through the whole process so you will all know the gory details. Ora pro nobis.
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Anglican Thoughts 
You will be in our prayers at the altar at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Allentown, PA tomorrow! Blessings and Healing!
Thank you so much. I treasure your prayers.
Prayers arise… I’m struck by your words, “kill everything but me…” Surely we are all of us more than our cells, even our “pluripotent stem cells” (doesn’t that sound theological!). This is all part of the great mystery of how flesh and spirit coinhere (I’m thinking Charles Williams here) and the wonder of embodiment that preserves identity even while the constituent bits and pieces that make it up march through and out of life like a parade. After all of this, the new “you” will still be “you” — and this gives me a special hope for the resurrection of the body — wonderfully transfigured. God bless you, dear brother in Christ….
Surely Jesus had a better method, but doctors seem to have put together a pretty miraculous program for you.
Prayers ascend.
We will remember you, Tony, in prayer at St. Andrew’s Bessemer City NC and at Morning Star Moravian Asheville NC. Tom Rightmyer
My prayer-writing vocation began with a marrow transplant. I was visiting my friend Joy in the hospital during Holy Week. She was undergoing a transplant, and her bone marrow had been destroyed by high dose chemotherapy. I realized she had to pass through a sea of microbes just as the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea, and I said a prayer to that effect. I’ve been using scriptural metaphors in prayers ever since. May God keep His hand upon You.
Jill Woodliff from Lent & Beyond