Quote:
Originally Posted by SAA Mom
Dena,
Thanks for the info.
Question: How did you decide to have a BMT and how are you doing?
|
SSA Mom, the reason I had my Donor SCT is a little more than 3 months after my Horse ATG, I ended up with a very tiny skin infection which ended up being staph, and instead of my blood counts "rising" to fight the infection, they crashed, even tho the infection was not present in my blood.
Prior to the infection, I had started responding to the ATG so although my counts were still very low, I hadn't needed platelets or a GCSF shot for 6 weeks and red cells for 2-1/2 weeks. When my cell counts immediately crashed with the infection, my Hematologist suggested we initiate the donor search just in case the negative impact to my counts with illness or infection occurred again as this is not the norm with most AA patients. It took 3 rounds of anitibiotics to finally clear the infection and my counts never recovered from this. I required platelets 2-3 x weekly, red cells weekly and gCSF shots every 2-3 days. So at 7 months post ATG I decided to move forward with transplant & had it 10 months post ATG. I could have had it sooner and it was risky to delay it, but the timing worked better and we knew that if the infection returned or I had another issue, we could move up the date quickly as the donor had already committed.
In most cases with AA patients my age (54), people have a repeat ATG prior to having a transplant, but because of how my cells crashed with infections, the experts did not recommend this for me.
I was very lucky with my transplant as so far it has been very successful and I feel terrific at almost 7 months post. My counts are all normal now & I haven't had a red cell transfusion since April (3 months post transplant) and no platelets since early February (the week after transplant). So far no GVHD issues either.
Best,