Houston, we have Engraftment!!!!

I finally received the long awaited call today. Delete Blood Cancer called and said they had a very brief update, which consisted of checkmarks on a form. The good news: Engraftment has occurred. This means that my blood stem cells have found their way to the spaces in the large bones and have started producing new blood cells for my recipient. What's really crazy is that experts are not completely certain how this amazing process works, but the cells just know where to go I guess. So my blood, is in him. Very strange feeling. I'm so happy to hear this news finally.

There was also some not so good news in the update, they mentioned that the patient is having some kind of complications. Nothing specific, so I don't know what it is. Since their immune system was non-existent and at best very weak now, it could be something like pneumonia, or just about anything I guess. I continue to pray that he gets better and better.

It's all starting to hit me now.... It was kind of surreal and strange, I just sat on a machine at Georgetown University Hospital on March 24th for a few hours and then my stem cells went off in a plane to Paris, France and went into someone else on the 25th. It didn't really feel like anything spectacular had happened at the time. I knew someone needed a bone marrow transplant due to Acute Myeloid Leukemia, but the separation and anonymity of everything kind of desensitized it all. But now that I have had an update from the patients doctor, I cried a little. Someone is really alive today and it's because my cells are making blood in them right now. I'm so happy today to hear this. It may be some time before I get another update, but hopefully I'll continue to get good news.

76 Days post donation

It has been 76 days since the transplant and still no word from the patients doctor. Delete Blood Cancer has asked again for an update, hopefully we will hear something soon. I am hoping that they are progressing well as the important 100 day milestone approaches.

I did get some good news, the Bone Marrow Drive at Microsoft in Las Colinas, Texas, will happen on June 24th. Delete Blood Cancer will be there to help me register potential matches at work. Microsoft has even offered to pay for the processing costs of anyone that registers at this event! Delete Blood Cancer normally pays for the processing of the cheek swabs from donations, but Microsoft will donate the funds necessary for this! Many people never know the good things that Microsoft does behind the scenes, helping out at so many levels with charities.

This past weekend, I was wearing my 'Bone Marrow Donor' shirt provided by Delete Blood Cancer, and a man introduced himself to me while eating lunch at a restaurant in the hospital district in Fort Worth. His 13 year old son was diagnosed with AML three week ago and they were there to start chemo therapy. I shook his hand and wished them luck. He seemed in very good spirits. I felt really bad inside knowing the hard journey ahead of them, but deep down I know things are going to work out for them.