That being said...I reached out to LG II's Aunt yesterday to see how she is doing. Well, she seems to be responding well so far. Her Aunt shared with me the family's blog of her journey and I was really excited to start reading about "the other side" of the donation process. I started at the beginning...LG II was diagnosed on Sept. 11, 2010 and started chemo the same night. She has been in the hospital almost everyday since, receiving treatments. The family wrote daily updates (like I did on my Mom's carepage) so I started to skim after a few days. AML is very aggressive and she was lucky to have caught it before it started spreading to her vital organs. AML has a 60% survival rate with a BMT (bone marrow transplant). Then I skipped ahead to January...the family posted on Monday, January 10th that a match had been found and they were to meet with the doctors for more details. I was notified on Friday, January 7th that I was a match. The meeting with the doctors was very promising. The match that was found for LG II was a perfect HLA match. Also, they look for a Natural Killer Cell (NK) match. There are 4 levels: None, Standard, Better and Best. The donor was a Better match and that was the highest match that LG II's hospital has every transplanted. The transplant date was set for March 3rd. My original donation date was March 2nd.
Goosebumps, right? At this point in reading the blog I started to bawl my eyes out...this is my LG! I mean...there is no confirmation, but all signs point to this being my LG. What a fantastic moment to read about the joy and excitement for this family. To see pictures of LG and to learn about her horrific journey and how it has altered this family and the community which support them.
So, of course, I skip to the most recent posts to learn about how the transplant is going. Here is where I received devastating news...it appears that the bone marrow contracted a staph infection which was not caught by the doctors until half-way through the transplant. The blood cultures taken tested positive for a rare form of staph. Reading this, I immediately felt horrified. I felt dirty, disgusting, infected and just beside myself. How could this happen? I had been through so many tests and passed with flying colors, or so I thought. It was the hardest thing to read as the family processed through this information and to read the anger, frustration, helplessness and fear that coursed through their words. They completed the transplant and had to hold their breath. The last post I read was for Monday. It appears that the staph strain is receptive to most antibiotics and that she had shown no signs of infection as of Monday night. Doctors were confident (as of Monday) that if she had not shown signs of infection (most notably a spiked fever), that she was likely going to be ok. LG II had been on antibiotics after a false positive test only 2 days before the transplant. The doctors think that the infection was contracted when the needle pierced the skin of the donor and entered the blood stream. Again, if I am the donor, totally makes sense with the multiple needle injections in multiple rooms during my donation.
I notified LG II's Aunt that I now understand why they have the 1 year rule. In 1 year, if LG II is doing great, I would never have had this information or concern. I told her that I would no longer be reading their blog as I do not want to hinder the documentation of their journey. I do NOT want them to curtail what they write on their blog because they are concerned at who might be reading it. This is their experience, just as this blog is mine. I struggled with whether to even post all this as I was having such pain and anxiety yesterday with the information, but after much consultation with those closest to me, I believe this information came to me for a reason and I want to share what could happen.
God has continued to speak to me through this experience. Hindsight is 20/20 and that has never been more true than today. God knew that there would be an infection and allowed that false positive to provide the antibiotics to be administered. I truly believe that this is yet another opportunity for me to learn faith, discipline, and self-control (in not reading LG II's blog), but most importantly to continue my journey in learning to accept life and not try to control everything.
I wanted to share this experience not because it is part of the journey and I want other donors to know the risks of knowing their donees. Everyone should be mindful of the rules. I will continue to put my faith in God and know that His hand is in every moment of this situation. As more time passes, I am more at peace with this process and know that without my donation, infected or clean, LG/LG II did not have much of a chance at survival; the cancer was killing her.
Before knowing this information I said that I would donate my bone marrow everyday over and over to help save someone (especially a baby) from this terrible disease. I feel even more strongly now. The 1 week of pain and recovery does not compare to the journey this family has been on and I would give of myself again to save her, in a heartbeat. Thank you for your love, support and continued prayers for both my recovery and that of LG/LG II.
Still & ALWAYS a Joyful Donor
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