Reflections on My Bone Marrow Transplant

The journey started two years ago this month

It was in June of 2021 that my hematologist, who had been seeing me for low iron in my blood, announced that my iron continued to trend downward and that I had Myelofibrosis and should consider a bone marrow transplant.

This didn't sound appealing to me. I imagined tubes attached to my bones to receive someone’s marrow.

“No, no,” he laughed. “It’s done through the blood!”

“Oh,” I said, relieved. “That’s better.”

He gave me the name of a specialist doctor at Hackensack Meridian Medical Center, about an hour away, and within two weeks or so, I met with this personable doctor, Dr. Scott Rowley. I mention his name because he saved my life.

Dr. Rowley specializes in medical oncology, hematology, and stem cell transplantation. He was very pleasant and explained carefully what was involved. There would be chemotherapy involved (radiation was out because of my heart pacemaker) and a multi-month in-hospital recovery on a floor dedicated to similar patients.

He told me I would need to find a caregiver, and I nominated my sister who happily accepted the role.

After that, there were follow-up appointments with him and a coordinator, including, among other things, scraping my bone marrow to help look for a match (ouch), and the subsequent search for a donor whose marrow would come close to mine. They eventually found a ten out of ten match.

Among the preparatory steps I had to take was an expensive one — dentistry that would ensure that my mouth wouldn't bleed. This was a race against time. I was scheduled for the hospital procedure in September.

When there wasn’t a bed open, the hospital stay was pushed back to October, and finally, all ducks were in order.

I have described here in the past the bad reactions I had to rabbit blood (used as a medium between mixed blood types), and a faulty catheter port that didn't work, so they had to put a “temporary” one in my arm (I kept it in my arm until the following June for followups and blood transfusions).

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