Quote:
Originally Posted by bchenaille
A standard BMT requires hi-dose cyclophosphamide (chemotherapy) to wipe out your existing bone marrow, AND Total Body Irradiation (TBI) from radiation therapy to destroy your existing stem cells that produce bone marrow.
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This isn't necessarily true - TBI is only used in some transplants, but if it is used, it pretty much destroys any chance for you to have a child afterwards.
Ketiacakes, I totally feel for you, because I was the same age as you when I was facing my transplant last January, and having been recently engaged, we hadn't even started to go about planning a family yet! If there is time with your disease progression, your doctors may advise you to have a baby ASAP, or if you're in a state like I was where you'd be dead in 9 months without treatment, you may be given the option of fast-track IVF to freeze embryos (there's a much, MUCH better success rate with frozen embryos than with frozen eggs). My whole course of IVF, from the first injection through to the egg collection, took about five weeks and it means we can have some hope of having a baby in a few years, despite my transplant. And as it turns out, there's a possibility that my ovaries weren't as fried as previously thought since I only had a mini-transplant (lower dose chemo and zero TBI), but the gynae/endocrine specialist is still observing my hormone levels to determine that.
So my advice is to please speak to your doctors about this ASAP, and find out what sort of transplant conditioning they have planned for you, and if you are eligible for IVF pre-transplant. I'm afraid I don't know how it works in the US, but here in the UK the whole process was covered by the NHS because of my circumstances and not having any children already.