Any Advise As I'm Getting Ready For My Allo Transplant?

Hi.  I'm 43 and was diagnosed with bence-jones light chain mm March 2, 2007.  I just completed four rounds of chemo (Doxil/Velcade/Dex) and achieved a pretty good remission from the chemo.  I've got the mm with the chromosomal 13 damage and several translocations.  I was stage 3b when diagnosed (kidneys were shutting down) but my only real symptoms were fatigue and tons of protein in my urine.  My b2m was 8.9.  Now they can't detect any protein leakage at all.  So far so good.  I'm going into Moffitt on June 20th for an allo transplant (stem cells from my sister) and I was hoping to connect with anyone who might have experienced this similar situation.  I've been told that I'll be pretty much out of it for as long as a year but I just have a really hard time believing that.  The only thing I've felt so far is somewhat tired but I'm still working full time and honestly I think I feel better than I did a year ago when I had no clue as to why I was tired all the time (husband thought it was in my head...boy was he wrong :-).  And it seems that only 70+ year olds are the ones with any experience in this area...and I'm not 70!!!  It sure would be nice to connect with someone...anyone?!

do you know what your HLA match is with your sister?  Allo transplants offer the advantages of no tumor contamination and a graft vs tumor effect but the disadvantage of GvHD.  Your age is an advantage.  Best of luck on the 20th.

My sister is a 6 out of 6 HLA match.  Doc's told me that the match was the best they could hope for, so I'm hopeful.

Hi, I'm not sure of all the right terms or how similar your cancer is to mum's.  But she was diagnosed 7 years ago this month, after a rountine blood test at age 49.  She has had one stem cell transplant when she was first diagnosed and went into remission for about 1-2 years. Anyhow after about 3 years of having thalidamine (not sure how to spell that one) treatment, it was mentioned about looking at transplants as her protein levels were slowly but consistently increasing.  We are now waiting to see how the chemo treatment has gone and the doctor will decide whether my mum will be having a stem cell transplant followed by a small bone marrow transplant or just a larger bone marrow transplant.  Although I don't remember every detail of her first transplant, it didn't take her a year, but she was healthy.  My mum was quite sick during the process but for the couple of years remission I'm sure she'll agree it was worth it.  I think she spent about 3-4 weeks in hospital and probably 3-6months until she was back on her feet.  I hope this helps a little bit and good luck with the transplant.