Dear Cancer On July 15, 1991 doctors from my Bone Marrow Transplant unit entered my room with about 4 implements that looked like 4 really big turkey basters. The stuff inside the basters was an off red color and was really weird looking. Anyway, after a short explanation of what they were going to do, they pushed the first one in very fast...then the next one, and next one and final one. WOW...what a rush! What that "Stuff" was, was my treated bone marrow that they were giving back me. Keep in mind this was after getting MEGA DOSES of chemotherapy that was designed to destroy my bone marrow and kill me. Those 4 "Turkey Basters" were in essence my life back. The next 6 weeks of my life were the most painful, sadistic, overwhelming, sad, depressing, etc...etc...Everyone that came in to see me how to wear a gown... Here is what I wrote about that 6 week span. This is from a book I wrote back in 1998 about my experiences with cancer. FROM CHAPTER 9 - TRANSPLANT ...Meanwhile, during this time, I started to experience severe pain in my lower back. My doctors were afraid that it was the cancer returning, but when they x-rayed me it actually showed that I had a collapsed lung. Not the greatest of news, but better than what they thought. The collapsed lung was due to me catching pneumonia, which I got because of having such low blood counts for 3 weeks. So let’s recap the last month. I had sores so bad in my mouth and down my throat that I could not swallow. I had severe bleeding in my bladder, and a catheter in me. I had no blood counts to speak of, and now had a collapsed lung with pneumonia. It was now the beginning of August, and although the sores in my mouth were healing, not much else was. My bladder acted up again which required another surgery and catheter. Everyday I would receive a platelet transfusion, because I was losing a tremendous amount of blood. Some days I would even have two platelet transfusions. After about a week of having the catheter in, the bleeding became massive. The blood was now clogging up the catheter and I had to be rushed in to emergency surgery to stop the problem. I was never more scared in my life at this point. My bladder was spasming so much that they had to hold me down because I was kicking and screaming form the pain. The blood in my bladder had now completely clogged my catheter and it was no longer draining. Imagine having the worst urge to pee and not being able to, knowing that it was because of blood backing up in to your kidneys. I went to the O.R. four times in a week and a half and was losing blood faster than I was making it. It was getting very bad and the future was not looking good. I was very sick and weak, but I still had the faith that God was going to pull me through. It was very tough, and at times I wondered if God was listening, but I still had faith. It got so bad some nights that I would ask God that if things didn’t get better soon to please take me home and take away my pain. During the last week of August, I started to spike these really high fevers. I was consistently around 103-104 degrees for about two days. The doctors had figured that one of the lumens in my broviac had been infected, and wanted to test it by running fluid thorough it. My mother was absolutely convinced that the lumen was infected, and demanded that the broviac be removed immediately, and that if the doctors ran anything through my lumen she would sue the hospital. Emergency surgery was needed to remove my broviac, which meant no anesthesia. I was going to have to stay wake while they cut me open, and removed my broviac. It wasn’t total butchery as the doctors had the decency to numb the area with Novocain. My nurse stood in the back of the room and held my hand as the doctors cut in to my chest and started to remove my broviac. I could see the blood dripping down my chest on to my stomach. As the knife cut deeper I started to scream more and more. Remember, this was something that had been in my body for eight and a half months. The surgeon had a difficult time removing it and a procedure that normally takes twenty minutes, wound up taking over and hour and a half. After the surgery I was so relieved. The doctors did find a staff infection in one of my lumens. If they had run anything through that lumen, I would have died within minutes. Thank God that my mother didn’t listen to the doctors and had them remove it. Moms always know best, especially mine. That incident almost was the end, and by the last week of August not much else was getting better. Besides having pneumonia, a collapsed lung, massive bleeding, and an infected lumen, I also had no blood counts. Time was running out and my counts needed to come up, or else. Things became so morbid that the last weekend of August my doctors told my mom and dad that I was not going to make it through the weekend. They told them to call family and friends and tell them the same. The Lord, however, had other plans. Miraculously the next day my counts started to come back, and the massive bleeding in my bladder stopped. For a week and a half there was no signs of blood in my urine, my doctors were absolutely amazed, they had witnessed a miracle."