08-08-2008

The day started off good and ended less graciously. I received chemotherapy and also an agent named ATG. ATG (Anti-Thymocyte Globulin) is a serum derived from genetically modified rabbits as an immunosuppressive drug. I believe it's designed to eliminate my T cells so when my sister's stem cells are injected in my body my T cells will not attack the injected T cells. This may help reduce the high chances of a condition known as Graft vs. Host disease. Graft vs. Host disease is where the graft (my sister) has a healthy immune system and it's injected in the Host (me) with a weakened immune system due to chemotherapy. In some cases the graft will identify the host as a foreign object and attack organ tissues. Tissues like liver, kidneys, and skin are more commonly effected. Graft vs. Host can be chronic or acute. Chronic meaning effects over 100 days from transplant date and acute meaning from transplant until 100 days from transplant. Anyways, I received some of this unusual stuff yesterday and it was not pretty.

The dosage was to be administer over 6 hours to minimize the number of effects at a time. But I slowly began to heat up and i got the chills. Very similar to a bad flu. Then even hotter and a excruciating headache and full body aches and my lower to mid back felt like a truck was parked on it. I had a significant amount of nausea and actually threw up a few times. Parts of my body had small uncontrollable twitching that went away later. Also later on I felt like really sore like I have run for miles. I receive ATG for four consecutive day and each day is supposed to have less effects.