Chemo and transplant update

Recovery from this past round of chemo has been rough especially with fevers and just feeling so fatigued. So as we approached today’s planned admission for my next round of chemo, I was afraid that I just wouldn’t be ready. But thankfully, God has given me renewed strength these past few days and I’m ready to fight this next round. 🥊

Exciting news! We’ve set a transplant date for April 1st. Yes, it’s April Fool’s Day. My daughter Chloe said wouldn’t it be a funny joke if we found out that my brother was NOT a donor match?! Hmmm, we weren’t sure if that would be very funny at all! 🤔. Thankfully, the reality is that my one and only brother Dan is amazingly a 10/10 100% match! Still can’t believe it!

With that said, this morning was filled with various tests to prepare for my transplant including PFTs (pulmonary function tests) and 13!! different blood labs. I was lucky I didn’t have to do a bunch of other tests like a cardiac echo, chest X-ray, EKG, and another bone marrow biopsy cause I did them recently and when I was admitted with fevers a few weeks ago. 👍

I later met with my transplant coordinator who explained what this month will look like for me and my brother including pre-transplant clinic appts, a transplant class, and various medications that will need to be taken. I’ll be admitted a week prior to the transplant for “conditioning” with chemo to help kill any remaining cancer cells that may be in my body and help make room in my bone marrow for the new blood stem cells to grow. It would also help prevent my body from rejecting the transplanted cells. We’ll really need to pray that God will help this transplant to go smoothly and my body will not resist or have adverse reactions to the new cells. 🙏

I then met with my oncologist Dr. Perl who shared some wonderful news regarding my bone marrow biopsy results from last week. They came back showing I was MRD (minimal residual disease) negative which means that no cancer cells could be found! And they also could not detect any Philadelphia chromosome in my bone marrow. Praise God!!

With those favorable results, for this next round of chemo, Dr. Perl felt it would be best to do a “mini-hyper-CVD” Cycle A which is basically a lower dosage of the chemo meds. He also did not want my recovery time to be an issue prior to my transplant in several weeks so I’d feel ready when that time comes. I’m so thankful for Dr. Perl and Joanna, my nurse practitioner. In addition to their wisdom and compassion, they always take the time to clearly answer my questions and thoroughly explain everything regarding my treatment.

A room finally opened up for me late in the afternoon and I was thrilled to be back on the 7th floor where I had been my first few admissions. I’ve already bumped into several familiar faces which was so nice. ☺️

I’ll be here for the next 4-5 days receiving chemo which I started tonight as well as spinal taps with intrathecal chemo tomorrow and on my last day. Please pray that they go well with no spinal headaches. 

Before I was admitted, I had a chance to visit Grace who was working at CHOP next door! We later got to enjoy some yummy ramen (with kimchi!)...from the HUP cafeteria believe it or not!!

I also was able to visit a dear fellow fighter Mrs. Oh (another blog update to come!) who has been here in the hospital cause of blood sepsis. I haven’t seen her in about 30 years!!  I so enjoyed catching up with her and Mr. Oh and introducing Grace to them. ☺️

All to say, today was a packed day! But again, thankful for the strength God’s provided... just when I’ve needed it. 💪🙏. 

As I’ve looked ahead to this important month of treatment, I’ve realized I’ve been thinking way too much and have often been needlessly overwhelmed by all the ins and outs of everything and the timing of things. Yet I so easily forget that God is working all things out in His time which is always best. I’m learning to let go and trust in God’s timetable with everything coming up. In particular, I’ve accepted that I just can't control how my body feels or how fast I recover, so I need to trust in the fact that God is constantly working and orchestrating everything in His perfect timing and knowledge as He has done so all along.  So I find peace and solace knowing that He’s got this and is in control... and I can rest in Him! ☺️