Day 207 : Follow Up

I am fine today.

Follow-up at SJMC on 26 May 09
My Blood Count Today:

Readings in square bracket [] are result from previous test.
Red Blood Count (HB) = 11.6[12.4] (Normal 13-18)

Platelet = 159[178] (Normal 150-450)

White Blood Count (WBC) = 4.7[4.7] (Normal 4 - 11)

All the blood count considered OK. For the HB, as the donor is from female, it is OK as long as HB above 11.5. The most important things is , physically I feel comfortable. Don't too particular about the figure.

The result of the transplant is a change of blood to my sister's in my body and since our immune system is provided by the blood as one of its functions, effectively, I got a brand new immune system. But the new immune system is not exactly the same as my sister's, so it may fails to recognize some of my organs and starts to attack them. This is what we called graft-versus-host disease (GVHD).

The main challenge after the bone marrow transplant is the management of GVHD. Whenever there is sign of GVHD, the patients' immune system have to be suppressed through certain medication to avoid organ damages. On the other hand, suppressing the immune system too much defeat the purposes of transplant as the immune system might become too weak to clear the remaining cancer cells in the body. Therefore, this is a game of balance. A good haematologist must be a good game player in this field.

I am "fortunate" enough to have GVHD, therefore, my immune system needs to be suppressed by taking immunosuppressive drugs such as Prednisolon (steroid) and Ciclosporin. With this, I found a very good and friendly reason to turn down any products that offer a boost to immune system.