post-BMT: good news

Today was my first post-BMT outpatient visit back at the hospital. I was given the weekly IVIG (takes 5 hours to infuse) and lots of blood was taken for many tests.

My transplant doctor was very pleased with my full blood count (FBC) results done this morning. It seems my new bone marrow is already producing red blood cells and possibly platelets so I didn't need any blood or platelet transfusions today (to the surprise of everyone). Normally, it takes months for the new bone marrow to start producing platelets. I will have another FBC done this Friday to see if my counts are still holding up. It will be wonderful news if indeed I do not need any more blood and platelet transfusions. Some of the benefits include: fewer trips back to hospital (just weekly for IVIG instead of the normal twice-a-week tranfusions); less chance of infection (either through blood products or from time spent at hospital getting transfused); saving my donors from having to donate more platelets; and saving many thousands of dollars as platelet transfusions are very expensive.

I got the results of the VNTR (Variable Number of Tandem Repeats) test done on Day 21. At that stage, my donor's stem cells already constituted 95% of my bone marrow (i.e. 95% engraftment) and my transplant doctor expects it to be 100% in the next few days (if not already).