[mausmish]

Hi Donna,

I'm so happy you heard from your donor. What a courageous and generous young woman!

The decision whether to use bone marrow or stem cells is up to the patient's transplant center. In my case, Johns Hopkins uses bone marrow because they believe it reduces the incidence of graft vs. host disease.

My donor said she attended a donor conference and after hearing the experiences of those who donated stem cells instead, she was actually grateful that she'd done marrow. Some of the stem cell donors had flu like side effects from the drug administered to release more stem cells into the blood. The thing that all the donors had in common was that they were glad they did it and they'd do it again in a heartbeat.

We owe our lives to the amazing folks. I am truly grateful.

Karen