Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Road Block...

Monday I met with a new doctor who has been doing stem cell transplants since 1968 and also founded the bone marrow transplant unit at M.D. Anderson hospital. I was hoping to have him do my stem cell transplant since he's local, that way it would be cheaper and less stressful with me not having to travel. However he declined and said that he didn't see a point in doing the stem cell transplant. He explained that when harvesting the stem cells there is no way to separate adult and infant stem cells from the other... because of this he said that after a period of time my body would "reset" and I would have Devic's again. He did talk to me about my current treatment and treatments I have had in the past and he discussed going back on Rituxan but using a higher dose and getting infused more often than I did in the past. Ultimately after discussing the risks with him and my parents I have decided to give his treatment plan a try. Not only does it sound different and like a more common sense type of approach to treatment but he has also had success in seeing a type of remission in another Devic's NMO patient.
Of course this is not how I wanted this adventure to go and I have yet a long road of many infusions in front of me but I feel it is the best option when everything has been laid out on the table and I've viewed both sides of the argument. For each and every person that donated I will be contacting you personally but I wanted to say thank you to those individuals who cheered me along and got me this far.