Am I Fit Enough for a Stem Cell Transplant?

In anticipation of the looming autologous stem cell transplant for my multiple myeloma, a lot of planning and testing is happening—a kind of countdown to the big launch. On the personal front I’ve made a visitor calendar so friends and family can sign up to take turns looking after me during the process. I’ve also made an appointment at the sperm bank.

Meanwhile the whole transplant machine is furiously busy. Doctors have me going through more tests than a chess-playing idiot savant. They want me healthy enough to go through the stem cell transplant process, which can sap energy and open you up to infection and illness.

I’m not complaining. I just don’t want to die during the procedure. And don’t call me dramatic either, because within my lifetime I’ve heard that bone marrow transplants had up to a fifty-fifty mortality rate. Today it’s down to 1% to 2%, but you want to be fit for what remains a major ordeal.

First I had sinus, head, and chest X-rays. Then came the echocardiogram and breathing tests (I sat in what looked like a clear plastic phone booth and blew into tubes while wearing a clothespin-like pincher on my nose). Finally I had a full-body CT scan and a hips-up PET scan—the same test that initially confirmed my cancer. The PET scan is weird: A technician carries a syringe clad in a cylinder to protect her from radiation. She then injects radioactive isotopes into my blood stream, where they concentrate in lesions in the bones if there is cancer.

There are still more tests to come, but I’ve only got two more months of this hell. When the transplant is over, I’ll be free of the meds—and hopefully free of cancer.

See Jason Carpenter’s ongoing video postings about his life with cancer. Warning: some expletives.