Miss Ellaneous Memoirs: Thank You to all the Donors

Dear Reader,

I was going to do a very thoughtful post today about donors, but I just read it all and it didn't turn out as good as I wanted. I'm so sorry to bum you out.

Instead, I think I'm going to do a very simple post with pictures, but still a bit about donors.

I used to have Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). The kind I had was very aggressive and my leukemic cells were reproducing fast. I needed a transplant or I was sure to die. Soon.

I had chemotherapy for 8 days right before transplant, this was to kill the bone marrow that I already had. All of it must die because it was making those leukemic cells that were killing me. If any of it was still living when I got transplanted, it could make those leukemic cells again.

When I got my transplant, the new marrow would have to start growing in me from nothing. It would be like just like a baby.

This is my donor's baby picture.

Patch told me that she had the people take as much from him as they could. This was a one-shot deal, the only match I had that gave me a chance. She really wanted the marrow to take, and the transplant to work. She took the max amount and gave me the max amount. She didn't really care if they sucked my donor's bones dry, he should get over it in a couple weeks or so.

I thought it looked like a lot of bone marrow, and personally I didn't know how it would feel getting all that put into me. I did think about my donor and that getting all of that taken out of him was probably a big deal for him. I knew he would certainly be sore for a few days. I wondered if it was his first time with anesthesia, I bet he was a little nervous.

Soon after we were officially introduced, I forgot about his feelings.

The bone marrow had got caught in traffic and my pre-meds had worn off. Transplant was very painful for me. Patch was in the room, so I begged and pleaded with her to stop it. I just wanted her to turn it off long enough so that she could give me the drugs to put me out. She told me that she couldn't, and it would be over in x amount of hours.

I told my body to stop complaining. It didn't listen, but I made it through the transplant.

Without my donor and his donation, I would be pushing-up-daisies.