Thank you Kevin and you are right on about the donor situation. There are three kinds of bone marrow transplants. One is having a donor. This is probably the best for cure since there is fresh marrow, cancer free, put back into the body. There are draw backs, one being, like any transplant there can be rejection problems even though the marrow matches. The donor transplant takes longer for the new marrow to take hold and start producing white cells to build back the immune system which had been reduced to zero, prior to xplant. This means that the patient is in the danger zone longer, if there is an infection of some kind it can be fatal. This was never an option to me, I think maybe because of my age. The second xplant is taking one's own marrow before hand, cleansing it and putting it back in. This of course is done hoping that the cancer is cleansed out of the marrow. The third type is the one I had which is taking out the patients stem cells, cleansing them and putting them back in. The difference is the stem cells are the mother or perifial cells that produce the bone marrow. This has become very popular since they do not think there is as much cancer in these cells and they take hold faster, getting the patient out of the danger zone faster. Any of these xplants are unpleasant!! They are finding that these xplants are working on more and more types of cancer. Multiple myeloma, which I have. and (excuse spellings) Luekemia, Lymphoma, non hodgkins, breast cancer and others.
Bill