It’s been three years since Mom was told she needed a stem cell transplant to survive more than three years. A rare side effect of the polycythemia vera she had been living with for 15 years is myelofibrosis, a condition characterized by the buildup of scar tissue in the bone marrow. Because of the fibrosis, the bone marrow is unable to make enough normal blood cells. Her choice was to have a risky stem cell transplant and the chance of a new life with healthy blood or live with the myelofibrosis with a life expectancy of three years, and those three years were not expected to be a full pleasant three years. Her quality of life would deteriorate as the scar tissue continued to build in her bones. In our conversations about getting the stem cell transplant, she tearfully told me she wanted just the chance at having a normal life, even with the risks involved (that same hope is transcribed in her words on the main page of this site). I told her that I understood but that I reserved to be mad at her if she died from the stem cell transplant…well, we know how that part ended.

Over the last three years, there have been times when I was mad about losing three years’ worth of time for her, though I would try to hold on to the memory of the hope she had that she had made the right decision. Lately I’ve been thinking that we were getting close to that three-year mark where if she had done nothing, she would be gone by now. This week, I finally made total peace with the transplant. It really sank in that if she had not had the transplant, these last months would have been painful. I even looked up what happens to people who live with myelofibrosis, and one doctor’s words keep echoing in my head: “there is a burden of suffering…Patients with myelofibrosis suffer greatly.” In her last months, Mom would have had joint pain, bone pain and other miserable side effects. She also would have been very aware that she was nearing the end of her life.

Instead, Mom's last days were happy. For many people, their last memory with Mom was at her retirement party, and that’s wonderful. She would prefer it that way. In general, her spirits were good toward what we now know was the end, and she wasn’t in pain. Mom had a last visit with her friends from Ponca. Her last weekend at home was spent watching OU football with best friends. Of course we didn’t know these were her last days, but in most ways, it was better that way.