My Leukemia Mentor

It's time to write some fun stuff!

I have been matched with a "mentor" through the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. They have a program called First Connection where they will match a person who has been through all of this. My mentor lives in Ontario, Canada. We finally "met" by phone. She was very inspiring to me. She was able to answer many of the questions I had that I wanted a patient's perspective on, not just how a doctor describes things. She had her bone marrow transplant in 2004. She told me her life is back to normal, despite a long and tough road getting there. But it was very helpful to talk with someone who has been through all of this.

She did tell me something I didn't know and had never even thought about. Once a person gets through a bone marrow transplant, the patient has to get all their childhood immunizations again. Because the chemo and radiation to prepare for the transplant completely destroys your old immune system, it's like being a baby with a new immune system. Weird, huh? Who knew?