In December of 1995 I had a gut feeling something was happening. My blood cell counts were creeping up, slowly but surely. My doctors said it's nothing to worry about, we'll just increase the interferon again.

By January, my counts were still creeping up, and my oncologist at Peel Memorial in Brampton decided I should have another bone marrow aspiration to see what was going on. I had an appointment February 6th at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto to discuss the results.

I was told that I was definitely moving into blast crisis, an accelerated phase of my CML, and that I definitely had no other treatment options at this point than an unrelated transplant.

Contrary to the last time I had been told this, I was in a much better headspace. I was a little better prepared to cope with the notion of a tranplant as I had been thinking about it over the last few months as my suspicion grew that something was wrong. Talking it over with a friend, Nancy, (now almost twenty years past a related transplant for CML) had really helped me deal with a lot of the issues I was facing. It was decided that we would go ahead. Again.

It took several months for the actual dates to come up. A suitable donor had to be found and worked up. Finally, I was told that my tranplant date was to be May 2, 1996, and my work-up was the week before. The week before my D-date involved:

• pulmonary function tests (to have a baseline of lung capacity before transplant)
• x-rays
• a visit to the dentist to x-ray teeth, clean etc.
• installation of a central venous catheter directly into the left chamber of my heart (commonly known as a hickman)

All of this was prep for the actual transplant. Nothing quite so drastic as open heart surgery! The catheter was inserted into one of the big veins in my chest leading into the heart. It was used to administer all chemotherapy, most medications and my marrow!

I had three days of chemotherapy starting on Friday; three days of radiation starting on Monday(of three two minutes sessions per side a day!) and Thursday, May 2nd, was day zero. I received my new marrow from about 8:30 pm to 10:00 pm. It was dripped in through the catheter in my chest from a big bag of marrow. (Much like a blood transfusion.)

When I received my marrow, I became short of breath. To this day, I really don't know if it was the coldness of the marrow dripping in, or an anxiety attack, or a reaction to the marrow. I was given Ativan to calm me down. I guess the Ativan worked -- the few hours the marrow took to drip in is pretty much a blur to me.

It was anticlimactic; despite it hitting me at this point there was truly no turning back. Obviously, once chemo had started, it was full steam ahead, but to me, this seemed like I had reached an irrevocable turning point.