September 2, 2017 would be the day that I was diagnosed with Leukemia. After many tests, the Dr's were able to identify the type of Leukemia to be Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) which by the grace of God, it is curable with a bone marrow transplant. To learn more on AML, click the link
https://www.lls.org/leukemia/acute-myeloid-leukemia. (
https://www.lls.org/leukemia/acute-myeloid-leukemia. )
Chemo treatments started right away which is called the induction treatment. After the induction treatments (about 20+ days in the hospital), my bone marrow biopsy came back clear of any bad cells so hello remission!! Although remission sounds good, it is not the end of the journey. Yes I am in remission but to be 100% cured, I will need a bone marrow transplant. While the hospital is looking for a donor, I continue chemo treatments every 5 weeks to keep me in remission, I call this my maintenance chemo which I just finished my 2nd treatment this past week (12/1/17).
For my donor, the Dr's first at my siblings which is called haploidentical (haplo) which obviously would be the best match due to being a relative. So my sisters were both tested but was determined they were not a perfect match to be my donor. The hospital then went to look for a non-related match on the donor registry Be The Match and you would think as many people who has registered, they would be able to find a match. Well that did not happen and now the back up plan is to use my sisters as a donor. My older sister Monica was determined to be the better match so now we are in the process of getting evaluated so the transplant can take place within the next few weeks. I will know more on when this will take place after 12/4/17.
