Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil Cuadra
"...after recovering from the transplant procedure your blood counts should return to normal. As you mention above, there can be other long-term issues like GVHD, but risk of infection should not be one of them."
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Well... yes and no. My own admittedly incomplete understanding of the process is that once your white count has recovered you have roughly the same infection-fighting capacity as an infant. That is to say you have lost all of the acquired immunities you had built up over a lifetime of exposure and vaccinations, so while you may have a good working immune system, you're still more prone to all of those childhood diseases than you were before you had the BMT.
Anyone care to comment on this? I know some post-transplant patients are given IVIG. Does that help restore your immunities or is it just a temporary protection?
Also, can someone explain how you can have both AA and MDS? I thought that as soon as they find any chromosomal mutations or dysplasia that automatically changes the diagnosis from AA to MDS. At least that's what they told us, so Ken's official diagnosis now is hypoplastic MDS instead of AA, even though we still think of it and treat it as AA.
re: Mark Yates: I don't believe he was ever diagnosed MDS, just AA with shortened telomeres. I could be wrong, but he always refers to it as "Aplastic Stupid Anemia". ;-)