Six years ago today
Today is January 17, 2017.
In 2010, my mother and I were having some difficulties. I had been terminated earlier in the year, but managed to find work in about a month. My mother's birthday is in September, and she always takes the week off. That year, she came back to termination papers of her own. Since she's older, she just decided on retirement. It was fine for a while, but she began to feel a little run down. She visited her doctor to see if anything was wrong. Despite some other issues - including brown urine - the doctor told her nothing was wrong, probably just telling her she needed to lose weight.
As Christmastime approached, mom would go to the mall to shop. She told me later that there were times when she was so exhausted, she thought she would pass out, and she wasn't sure how she would get back to her car. Things progressively got worse. We thought maybe she had the flu. One day I called her before leaving work and she wasn't making sense. I got home to find she had a temperature of 103 degrees. Finally, on January 17th, Martin Luther King day that year, I convinced her to let me take her to the doctor to get a flu shot, since that was a holiday for me.
You never think you will hear the word leukemia spoken about someone you love. You think there are things that have shocked you in this life, but nothing does it like a cancer diagnosis. We argued with the doctors. They insisted that they were correct. And then the desperation began. I grew up in church schools, so I'm used to praying. I have never prayed with such fervency as I did that day.
They transferred her directly to MD Anderson Cancer Center. Usually, when your doctor gives you a diagnosis, you call MD Anderson and get on a list. When they get to you, they call you up and you start your treatment. Only the severe cases get transferred directly to the hospital.
She spent two months in complete isolation. The first month I had to wear a gown, gloves, and a face mask to be in the same room with her. It was this month that she lost all her hair. A few months later she was in isolation again, and this time, I had to sit in a little room next to hers and talk to her over a speaker phone.
Our miracle came in the form of a stem cell treatment. There are two types of stem cell treatments. One is from a near relative. She had no siblings who could donate. The other was from a complete stranger. These are less likely to produce results, but that was the way we had to go. We were told that we should expect maybe a few matches, and then these would be narrowed down to a few. We were told that this method was more likely to result in rejections. What choice did we have?
There were 31 exact matches. The doctors and nurses told us this was unprecedented. That was narrowed to 10 perfect matches. Still unprecedented.
She was released from the hospital just in time for her birthday. Nine months after she was admitted.
After that she had to return to the hospital every day for treatments. I would drop her off at the hospital in the morning before work and pick her up after work. She would have to drag herself to each appointment. Sometimes she would finish before I was off and had to sit there waiting for me. Sometimes she would still be receiving treatments when I got there. Those days we would be lucky to get home before 2 am. That was every day for over a year.
During that time, she saw many other patients coming in every other day. Sometimes they would stop showing up. My mom would ask what had happened, and she was told they had rejected their transplant. Gratefully, my mother never experienced rejection or an infection.
This August it will be six years that she has been in remission. After five they say you are cured. So much has happened in these five years. So much it's still hard to think about. So much I can't bring myself to write about, that I may never be able to share. And this is just my perspective. She tells me that if they ever tell her it's come back, she will tell them she won't go through it again. You know the experience was horrible beyond imagining when someone would choose certain death over treatment.
I can't tell you how grateful I am for the people at MD Anderson. Anytime I meet someone who works there I thank them. I don't care what part of the hospital they work in. The work they do is invaluable, from the most experienced doctor to the person cleaning the floors. And the people and donors of Be The Match. Without all these people so many more would be suffering and dying.
If you want to help continue the good work being done at MD Anderson, please consider making a donation here: https://www.mdanderson.org/donors-volunteers.html
Also, if you want to take a more active role in helping people survive, consider becoming a stem cell or bone marrow donor. Go to https://bethematch.org/
I hope this will let people know how thankful I am for my mother's life. I am grateful to thousands of nameless people who help so many others during a terrible time of their lives. Some they watch recover; I can't imagine the difficulty they experience watching those who don't. Gratitude doesn't even cover the feelings I have for that selfless individual who took time out of her life to literally give a part of herself to save a complete stranger. And that is a true miracle.
In 2010, my mother and I were having some difficulties. I had been terminated earlier in the year, but managed to find work in about a month. My mother's birthday is in September, and she always takes the week off. That year, she came back to termination papers of her own. Since she's older, she just decided on retirement. It was fine for a while, but she began to feel a little run down. She visited her doctor to see if anything was wrong. Despite some other issues - including brown urine - the doctor told her nothing was wrong, probably just telling her she needed to lose weight.
As Christmastime approached, mom would go to the mall to shop. She told me later that there were times when she was so exhausted, she thought she would pass out, and she wasn't sure how she would get back to her car. Things progressively got worse. We thought maybe she had the flu. One day I called her before leaving work and she wasn't making sense. I got home to find she had a temperature of 103 degrees. Finally, on January 17th, Martin Luther King day that year, I convinced her to let me take her to the doctor to get a flu shot, since that was a holiday for me.
You never think you will hear the word leukemia spoken about someone you love. You think there are things that have shocked you in this life, but nothing does it like a cancer diagnosis. We argued with the doctors. They insisted that they were correct. And then the desperation began. I grew up in church schools, so I'm used to praying. I have never prayed with such fervency as I did that day.
They transferred her directly to MD Anderson Cancer Center. Usually, when your doctor gives you a diagnosis, you call MD Anderson and get on a list. When they get to you, they call you up and you start your treatment. Only the severe cases get transferred directly to the hospital.
She spent two months in complete isolation. The first month I had to wear a gown, gloves, and a face mask to be in the same room with her. It was this month that she lost all her hair. A few months later she was in isolation again, and this time, I had to sit in a little room next to hers and talk to her over a speaker phone.
Our miracle came in the form of a stem cell treatment. There are two types of stem cell treatments. One is from a near relative. She had no siblings who could donate. The other was from a complete stranger. These are less likely to produce results, but that was the way we had to go. We were told that we should expect maybe a few matches, and then these would be narrowed down to a few. We were told that this method was more likely to result in rejections. What choice did we have?
There were 31 exact matches. The doctors and nurses told us this was unprecedented. That was narrowed to 10 perfect matches. Still unprecedented.
She was released from the hospital just in time for her birthday. Nine months after she was admitted.
After that she had to return to the hospital every day for treatments. I would drop her off at the hospital in the morning before work and pick her up after work. She would have to drag herself to each appointment. Sometimes she would finish before I was off and had to sit there waiting for me. Sometimes she would still be receiving treatments when I got there. Those days we would be lucky to get home before 2 am. That was every day for over a year.
During that time, she saw many other patients coming in every other day. Sometimes they would stop showing up. My mom would ask what had happened, and she was told they had rejected their transplant. Gratefully, my mother never experienced rejection or an infection.
This August it will be six years that she has been in remission. After five they say you are cured. So much has happened in these five years. So much it's still hard to think about. So much I can't bring myself to write about, that I may never be able to share. And this is just my perspective. She tells me that if they ever tell her it's come back, she will tell them she won't go through it again. You know the experience was horrible beyond imagining when someone would choose certain death over treatment.
I can't tell you how grateful I am for the people at MD Anderson. Anytime I meet someone who works there I thank them. I don't care what part of the hospital they work in. The work they do is invaluable, from the most experienced doctor to the person cleaning the floors. And the people and donors of Be The Match. Without all these people so many more would be suffering and dying.
If you want to help continue the good work being done at MD Anderson, please consider making a donation here: https://www.mdanderson.org/donors-volunteers.html
Also, if you want to take a more active role in helping people survive, consider becoming a stem cell or bone marrow donor. Go to https://bethematch.org/
I hope this will let people know how thankful I am for my mother's life. I am grateful to thousands of nameless people who help so many others during a terrible time of their lives. Some they watch recover; I can't imagine the difficulty they experience watching those who don't. Gratitude doesn't even cover the feelings I have for that selfless individual who took time out of her life to literally give a part of herself to save a complete stranger. And that is a true miracle.
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