View Single Post
  #5  
Old Wed Jan 9, 2019, 03:59 PM
DanL DanL is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Denver, CO
Posts: 590
Just a quick tutorial on abbreviations:

MPN - Myeloproliferative neoplasm - fancy way of saying blood cancer or abnormality. This refers specifically to the three below:

ET - Essential Thrombocythemia
PV - Polycythemia Vera
MF - Myelofibrosis

All three of the above are the result of your bone marrow producing defective cells and usually too many or too few of one or more types (red, white, platelets).

GVHD - Graft vs Host Disease - a disease where your new immune system from the donor of transplant stem cells doesn't recognize your body as its natural home and treats it as a foreign body, as if it were a cold or the flu. It is where your new immune system attacks your skin, gut, eyes, liver, lungs (together or individually), and is a common event after allogeneic stem celll transplant.

Most of these you can do a basic search on google and find out what they mean, at least scientifically. The forums have a lot of people who are very good at explaining these in plain language much more clearly than I am able to.

Being diagnosed with one of these diseases frequently means learning to speak a completely different language to cope with the medical terms that get thrown at you. The best source of answers is your doctor and their medical team, and just take a notebook any time you run into a question and write it down for your next visit, then go through line by line until you are satisfied. This will probably go on for several visits until you have a decent understanding of all of the most common terms.

I wish you best of luck with all elements of this journey.
__________________
MDS RCMD w/grade 2-3 fibrosis. Allo-MUD Feb 26, 2014. Relapsed August 2014. Free and clear of MDS since November 2014 after treatment with Vidaza and Rituxan. Experiencing autoimmune attack on CNS thought to be GVHD, some gut, skin and ocular cGVHD. Neuropathy over 80% of body.
Reply With Quote