Chemotherapy, Briefly

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It doesn't get much simpler than this: your body is very resilient. If you can get your bone marrow to actually stop producing the immature, leukemic blood cells, it will (fingers crossed) be able to recover, firing up the production lines again. A hard reboot, if you will. Slam it shut, any way you can, and in strange and mysterious ways, it will resume normal production sometime later.

The tricky part, then, is "turning off" the bone marrow. This is where chemotherapy comes in. Chemical therapy. Basically, pump a controlled amount of extremely high-dose chemicals into your body so that it can knock your marrow senseless. Kick the complete and utter crap out of it. Pummel it. Pound it relentlessly and trust that your body is strong enough to get back up off the mat when all is said and done.

Think you're tough now, Leukemia? Why don't you try a little daunorubicin on for size?

What's that, tough guy? You want a piece of me?

Let's see how tough you are after we throw in some Ara-C for good measure.

Too much chemotherapy and you're down for the count. Too little and you've got to get back in the ring again, already more than a little punchy from the first round. The chemo needs to be carefully measured and monitored. You cross your fingers, hoping that it comes back. With a dwindling supply of healthy blood cells, and no way, post-chemo, of producing any kind of blood cells, healthy or otherwise, you just hope that it comes back soon.

The alternatives? Well, we won't go there, because there really aren't any.

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A Few Notes

robert (now and then)
(hover to see RKB in 1990)
After running two marathons in October 2010 with Team in Training, I've decided to "slack off" with just the one marathon in 2011.

This year will be in memory of Siona Shah, an amazing young girl who spent the final third of her too-short life battling leukemia with courage, grace, humility, and smiles.

It will also be in memory of my step-grandmother, Ruth, who passed away on June 15th after a recurrence of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

I'd originally started using this site to tell my story -- roughly eight months of treatment in 1990, as well as the impact leukemia had on me in the years that followed. Much of that story is still available through the "Table of Contents" below (starting with my initial diagnosis while I was studying in England).

 - Robert K. Brown
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