My labs from yesterday showed that my bone marrow is starting to work again, WBC and platelets were up! I haven't felt good lately and had a low grade fever but this can be from my body working so hard to graft my marrow. I still needed to get some red blood cells today and already feel better. I feel much less dizzy and out of breath.
As of right now I will start my next round of chemo next Tuesday. I am not really looking forward to doing another round but happy it has gone fast..
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| One of the bags of red blood cells I got today. Thanks donors! |
People with leukemia are candidates to have bone marrow transplants so they have to receive irradiated cells. This is because every time you get blood there are little signatures of the donor's immune system (T-lymphocytes), so if you get a bone marrow transplant you can't possibly match 40 peoples immune system. Also, because most leukemics don't have immune systems, so if there is a reaction to the blood then the body could not mount a counterattack which causes Transfusion- Associated Graft-versus-Host Disease (TA-GvHD). This is really bad and is about 90% fatal so it is really important that I get irradiated cells! They put this cool label on the bag that removes the "NOT" after it is exposed to x-rays. They also reduce the number of Leukocytes which helps reduce the chance of a negative reaction. (I think I just made a triple negative, which would still be negative? ) Still curious, read m ore here: http://www.bbguy.org/faq/irradiation.asp
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| Cool label |
1 comment:
I'm so glad to hear your marrow is starting to work again! We continue to pray for you, Josh!!!
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