Day +138 Lions, Goats & Snakes

Last week I received results from the final study of my last bone marrow biopsy. The results are detailed in a Chimerism Report. The Chimerism study was, I presume, named by researchers and not practicing doctors. Doctors that deal with patients really dont like to answer the question "Why is the report called Chimerism?" First of all, there is some rule in medicine that diseases, conditions, and body parts be given greek names. As it happens, the Chimerism study is named after a "monstrous creature" in Greek Mythology named "Chimera". Here is a picture of the 2 headed cutie. Chimera is the lesser known sibling of the well heeled three headed dog that guards Hell, Cerberus. Apparently Cerberus was the more successful of the siblings since he had an actual job. Chimera is described in the Iliad as, "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire". Chimera was unemployed and she was literally associated with bad news. A sighting of Chimera was an omen of storms, shipwrecks, and natural disasters.
Back to the Chimerism report. The Chimer would be me. The purpose of the study is to quantify what percentage of my living stem cells can be traced to the new donor and what percentage can be traced to my 'original' stem cells. Since my original stem cells were well on their way to taking an early unauthorized retirement we made a valiant effort to evict all of them. We then introduced a batch of new donor supplied stem cells that hopefully do not want to retire early. Therefore, the Chimerism study seeks to discover whether the old stem cells are trying to sneak back into the bone marrow. We hope this does not happen. And, so far, so good!

The report reads:
Mean percent Recipient, %: 0
Mean percent Donor, %: 100

On a final note, if I have to be a Chimer I'd like to think that the Lion part of me is from the donor and the Goat part is from my old self. The snake? Well, I know I still have that and it's still very much alive. Ha ha.