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Mellie,
I'm sorry that your brother needs a transplant. But how great that you can be his donor. You're already a hero!
Transplant donor coordinators always stress that they must never put donors in danger, which means that they wouldn't have accepted you if there was more than a minimal risk to you. That means no more risk than for any other medical procedure. Actually, there's a possibility that some medical problem not previously known to you could show up when you donate bone marrow, and this risk increases with age, but it's still small. They probably would have picked a younger donor if one had matched your brother as closely. But there's nothing that you need to do about this. They allow older donors when it's a matched sibling. You're the best choice!
The rules for former cancer patients donating bone marrow depend on what type of cancer and what type of treatment, and even how long ago it was. The bottom line is that you qualified under those rules.
Your blood counts aren't really an issue. The most important thing for you to do now is to stay healthy. A transplant may be postponed, at great risk to the recipient, if the donor has signs of a serious cold or flu. Nobody can be perfectly safe from colds and flu without living in a plastic bubble, but the precautions are routine - lots of hand-washing, staying out of the way of people who are sick, careful food preparation, getting the annual flu vaccination, avoiding air travel if possible, and other common sense safeguards.
Is it definite that your brother will have a bone marrow transplant, or were you tested in case it comes to that? Have they already talked about when it might take place?
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