New beginnings. After 4 days of additional chemotherapy and a day of rest, this morning at 10:00 a.m. CDT I received my stem cell transplant in hopes of curing my acute myeloid leukemia. Prior to starting the transplant, I had the hospital Chaplain come up to bless and pray for me. He started off reading Psalm 91, then blessed me, the hospital staff performing the transplant and the donor. Finally, we closed by reciting the Lord’s Prayer and all persons present joined in. The entire procedure took a little over 2 hours, the last part of which Lorraine joined me at the Hospital. I have not yet experienced any adverse effects. All of my vital signs (monitored every 15 minutes) stayed stable during the entire period. Now it is a waiting game to allow the new stem cells to engraft into my bone marrow and begin to produce, new cancer-free blood cells. When we held a light up to the transfer line, you could actually see the clumps of cells coming through the line. Pretty amazing stuff.
There are still all kinds of risks awaiting me with regards to rejection, but I am now on the winning side. I feel strong and ready to take on this new life – many transplant patients reset their birthday as their transplant date. The next few weeks will be like becoming an infant again – my blood type will change from A+ to O+ (my Donor’s blood type) and my DNA will change as the new cells engraft. I just have to continue to hope the new cells don’t go to war to aggressively with my existing cells.
I truly appreciate, and cannot thank everyone enough for your support and prayers in bringing me to this new beginning. Praying for full restoration and know that I am in God’s Hands.
Yours in Christ,
John L.
Cancer Journey 
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