Dear friends and well-wishers, this update is coming to you more than half a day late! When I got back from the hospital last night I was too exhausted to sit at my lapto.  I went straight to bed.[...]

In hospital jargon, today is Day + 5, which, as you would have guessed, is the 5 th. day after transplant, and according to her doctors, Sujata’s condition seems to be following a satisfactory path. That is the good news. The bad news is that this path, for the next week or so, will continue to make her increasingly weak and prone to infection. Her white blood count this evening stood at 0.8, a small fraction of a healthy person’s number, making her very vulnerable to infections of all kinds. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex medical process, here’s a layman’s version of what’s going on: the chemo she received last week is reaching her bone marrow just about now and gradually killing off her own stem cells, making room for the transplanted donor cells to set up shop and start producing blood. And when that begins to happen, hopefully in another week to 10 days, the blood counts will start to go up again and Sujata will gradually feel better.[...]

Last night (September 27) the transplant donor’s stem cells were infused into Sujata’s blood stream and the process went without a hitch. But not without a few anxious, nail-biting moments, I have to say. We had been told that the infusion process would start around 12:00 noon, so I arrived at the hospital early in the morning and waited. Kate, Anjali and Rahul were here too at various times and waited and waited! Noon turned to early afternoon and then to late afternoon, and soon it was dark outside. Nothing had started. The attending nurse, a really wonderful lady, sensed our anxiety. She told us that the stem cells were coming from a “far off land” and had not arrived yet, but not to worry. We would just have to be patient. Then around 8:00 pm a young man in a white coat hurriedly walked in with a little box that looked like a cooler, and there was jubilation and subdued cheers among the nurses. It had arrived – two little pouches of stem cells with inspection stamps from several labs. The infusion process was relatively simple. They gave Sujata some sedative, hooked her up to various monitors and, then for the next three hours, infused the cells into her through the implanted catheter as she slept. See picture above and more pictures in the album on left. The pouch with the red liquid is the one with the stem cells.[...]

Today was the last day of chemo and while she still manages to smile often, you can tell from looking at her (picture above) that this regimen of harsh drugs has really taken its toll on Sujata. They have been giving her blood every day to keep the hemoglobin levels to around 6, and lots of medicine to counter nausea and various other side effects of the chemo. Extreme fatigue has set in and she seems to have lost taste for food. She has eaten little since yesterday. This afternoon, Kate, who is an avid cook, made some special pasta and brought it over for lunch. And with a magic touch she managed to feed Sujata most of it. The nurses were relieved.[...]

Today was the fourth day of chemotherapy and the effects of the medication are beginning to tell a little bit. Sujata’s blood counts went down pretty rapidly, as expected,  so she had to be given a couple of blood transfusions to get her hemoglobin back to a safe level. But, as you can see above, she still looks great and her spirits remain indomitable. She was chatting up a storm with her visitors today until fairly late in the evening and then her energy ran out and she fell asleep.[...]

Hello everybody, I just got back from the hospital and am happy to report that, after almost two days of intense chemotherapy, Sujata looks remarkably well, as you can see from the picture above. As expected her blood counts have fallen, with hemoglobin at 6.3, but her spirit remains high. She is allowed to eat only well cooked food and drink distilled water to minimize the risk of infection. Most of the discomfort from the surgically implanted catheter seems to have subsided, so she can sleep on her side without waking up from pain. We know that tougher days lie ahead, but Sujata seems to have made a running start to meet the future head on. And, perhaps more than anything else, your posts on the website have done wonders for her. She reads them over and over again on her iPad and her face lights up with a ear-to-ear grin.[...]

What a a long day! We left home at around 7:30 am and after fighting unusally heavy traffic enroute, made it to the hospital just in time for surgery.  The attending vascular surgeon implanted a catheter which runs all the way from Sujata's upper chest area to the neck, providing doctors access to her blood stream.  This catheter will be with her for the next few months, serving as the main pathway for all infusions.[...]

Dear Friends, We have created this site so that you can follow Sujata's progress as she undergoes a Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) to treat her Myelofibrosis, an extremely rare and treacherous form of blood cancer.[...]