The Human Side of Knowledge and the Tandem AUTO/mini-ALLO Stem Cell Transplants

Knowledge concerning transplants as a treatment for Multiple Myeloma can be found with ease. Definitions, especially, abound often annotated with carefully written descriptions.

For example:

AUTOl·o·gous (ô-tŏl'ə-gəs) transplant: a transplant of tissues involving one individual as both donor and recipient. i.e. An autologous stem cell transplant refers to stem cells that are collected from an individual and given back to that same individual, as in autologous bone marrow transplant.

AND--

mini ALLO·ge·ne·ic (āl'ə-jə-nē'ĭk) transplant: a transplant of tissues involving individuals of the same species that are sufficiently unlike genetically to interact against the cancer.
ie. A new approach to treating myeloma; mini-allo transplants involve the use of moderately high-dose chemotherapy in combination with an allogeneic stem cell transplant without destroying the bone marrow completely as with the auto transplant; safer; more tolerable; an alternative to conventional allogeneic transplants.

And Yet...Something is Missing: the Human Side of Knowledge

I once believed that knowledge was power. After five years teaching elementary age kids in squatty, sub-standard portable buildings at Zilker School in Austin, I was finally assigned my first classroom in the main building where, despite its age, both teachers and students had access to things like phones and bathrooms. My new room was beautiful and enormous. A wall of windows overlooked a courtyard of live oaks. Bluebonnets in spring adorned the sidewalks just beyond. The best feature: a vaulted ceiling of unbelievable height.

So my first purchase for the upcoming year that summer at the teacher supply store was a colorful card stock banner that I laminated. It read: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. I attached the banner with magnets (because no tape would hold in the humidity) to a metal beam near the summit of the room, and there the banner remained for some years.

When I moved on to teach at Bailey Middle School, I took down the banner, but, in essence, it has remained--magnetically attached to a beam in the room of my heart. For I have subscribed to this belief in the power of knowledge for most of my life.

Yet, now that I have cancer, and have a high need-to-know concerning my treatment, medications, alternatives and so on, I find myself turning once again to knowledge as a source of power in my fight against cancer.

But, if there's anything I've learned in the months since my diagnosis, it is that cancer belies knowledge. Knowledge is NOT all-powerful with cancer. That's because doctors don't really KNOW cancer. Doctors can pretend they know cancer, and you can pretend doctors know cancer, but it still won't be true. Truth is, when faced with treatment options--to obtain a transplant or not, for example--it really comes down to FAITH (a gut reaction,) not KNOWLEDGE. Not necessarily faith in God (though that type of faith is a requirement of mine,) but faith in the treatment that is chosen.

But I have noticed a problem in this knowledge versus faith continuum concerning cancer that I will hope to remedy in this blog. The problem, once again, is one of knowledge, or rather lack thereof. That is, the mystery of the transplant procedure itself. There ARE plenty of books, pamphlets, and even blogs about bone marrow transplants, but most of them focus on the facts. I think as a person about to embark on a transplant journey I want more than knowledge of devices and objects. I think what I need is insight--that is, the space where humanity meets technology and finds a common ground. (A post-human sentiment for those of you who know what that is.)

So, be it as it may, I'm going to do that in this blog. Starting on February 26th, but also in the days leading up to it, (I've already started) I will cover day to day my experiences both in words and pictures of the human side of the bone marrow transplant, giving knowledge to faith and dispelling some of the mystery.