Day +162 News From My Other Half

Today was not going to be a post day even though I had 2 appointments at the hospital. But now that I'm back I have something. One appointment was for a blood draw, a residual from the Maribavir clinical trial study I was on until April. Not much excitement there. The other was my 3 week gassing with Pentamadine. This is where I suck an antibiotic gas under a hood for 10 minutes while I read a 6 month old issue of People Magazine. Not much excitement there.
The real treat was getting a letter from my donor. Mr. 'D' sent me, through the numerous editing channels of course, a nice letter on regular paper. This was exciting to me. I'm going to reproduce it below cuz it's not really personal and I want you to see how Mr. D's life has been affected as a donor. I'm sure he won't mind me posting this.

But before typing in the letter I want to say that I am doing great. My Dad and I have been finding many hidden trails within 5 miles of my house for our hiking excursions. The area is literally riddled with canyons sporting old trails and roads. The wild thistle artichokes are blooming a bright purple. The plant looks like an regular artichoke on steroids. Rabbits scurry everywhere as we approach and birds drunkenly fly about after munching on the ripe red monkey berries. It's getting hot so we plan our trips for 6:30pm when the ocean breeze starts pushing the sea mist back up the gentle marine terraced slopes.
My next doctors appt is July 3. He will be advising me on whether he thinks I can resume mingling with other people in offices and other gathering places. Believe me, I'm missed many gatherings that I wished I hadn't. The fact is, we are a pretty healthy society what with all the vaccinations we received as kids. So now I, who have lost all my immunities, get to take advantage of all of your good health, which is attributable to your childhood-engineered vaccines. I can catch colds and the flu, but all the really nasty stuff is pretty rare these days due to the childhood vaccination program. I'll start re-taking the vaccinations in around 6 months.

Without further adieu, meet my donor, Mr. 'D':


Dear Recipient,

Have received your letters and I am so glad that the donation was a success. It has been a unique and rewarding experience for me. I never thought that I would get called to donate. When I was contacted in 2006 I had forgotten that I had signed up. Through talking with my coordinator I found that I had enrolled in the program in 1992 - many years and quite a few moves ago. How they tracked me down I am not sure. The coordinator told me that that was the longest span between sign up and donation that they had seen. It was obviously meant to be.

Many of my coworkers have given me so much support when they heard I was in line to donate. They had many questions. Since I have returned from the donation I know of one person that has signed up to be a donor. My employer is a big advocate for the program and is going to have a sign up drive in a few months. I have been asked to speak of my experiences during the whole procedure. They were surprised to see me back to work at full steam the day after the donation. A lot of people thought of the old procedure where the marrow had to come from the hip. (I would have done that if needed.)

As far as all of the medical terminology, I am not very well versed. Science was not my strong point in school.

I am happy to hear that you are progressing and I also look forward to the day we can exchange information. I have a 'motto' that I live by - We are all in this together. Life is hard enough and we have the choice to help each other or not.

I am not very good at the letter writing (my Mom gets onto me about it) but I will try to get better. I am using a friend's computer to write this so that it is legible. As you can tell from the card I sent that I do not have the best handwriting in the world.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Your Donor


I typed that word-for-word from Mr. D's letter, which I received from the transplant nurse today. It makes me feel great to know that Mr D's donor experience is enriching his life. I did not want to feel like his experience has not been good. Anyway, it is my intention to remind Mr. D from time to time what great things his generosity has done for my family. We will never forget his effort and hope to establish non-censored contact with him when the NBDP allows.