Fifty Four

Fifty Four, what exactly is that number to me. Well as of  today (I posted this Dec. 8 2012) it is my 54th birthday and how old I am now. Fifty four, a year away from fifty five and senior status age for many things which in many ways could be a good thing.

Dr. R. Ramchandren

However, fifty four in my case is what I am thinking of as a "grey area", no pun intended. What I mean about grey area is that back on April 18, 2011 I had an appointment for a second opinion about my current cancer with Dr. Rod Ramchandren a Lymphoma Oncologist at the Karmanos Cancer Cancer Institute in Detroit, Michigan.

During the conversation with him we discussed and he offered many opinions on things that really matched up with what I had already been told by my own Oncologist back home in Windsor. The one thing that came up several times during the conversation with the thought of doing an allogenic stem cell / bone marrow transplant. This means a transplant using the cells / marrow of a donor. My first transplant was an Autologous transplant which used my own cells / marrow.

My thoughts of doing an allogenic transplant are fixed and firm, NO! I will not do one even if it's the last option left to me, my answer  would remain a firm no. My reasoning is that the odds of finding a 10/10 donor would be extremely rare if at all, and that the chances of recovering from it would be difficult at best due to my already weakened body and immune system.

What has really reassured me I've made the right decision is the fact that my lead Oncologist here in Windsor sent my file / history to the Hamilton (ON) transplant group which is one of two hospitals here in Ontario that do stem cell / bone marrow transplants. The other is London (ON) where I had my "Auto" transplant in December 2008

The answer from Hamilton came back and in my favor! I would NOT be a good candidate for an allogenic transplant. Some might as why I would be happy with this. Well what I can tell you is I've done the Auto transplant and survived that, even though there were a few hiccups along the way. Let's just say I don't ever want to go through anything like that again! Enough said.

So this being my 54th Birthday my wish, desire, and will is to see my 55th and beyond, even if I only get to December 9th 2013, then I've proved them wrong, and this is not just to prove them wrong but it's my will to live a lot longer that makes this, I'll call challenge for now, easy!

I would like to thank all of you that read my blog and encourage you to share it with others, and I would like to thank all of you that have sent me birthday messages via Facebook, Twitter or any other avenue I'm part of.

In the event I don't get another blog out before Christmas / New Year, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and an extremely joyous and Happy New Year!