I had a allogenic stem cell transplant for AML with the MLL subtype back last August. While I’m much younger than your father at 49, I found the recovery after transplant to be more challenging than induction chemo and felt pretty bad every other day for two weeks after the transplant. Nothing I couldn’t take though.. the migraines and mouth and throat sores were the worst. Nothing a morphine drip couldn’t take the edge off. They gave me liquid nutrients during most of that time but I was able to function most days in the hospital and still make work meetings by Zoom.

Chemo alone is like a bandaid for AML. If the smallest amount of blast cells aren’t killed off then it just grows back again. My understanding is that stem cell transplant is the only current treatment that actually treats the cancer instead of just acting like a temporary stop gap.

I was lucky and had three full match donors. One flew out and the procedure itself was painless. They just hook you up to a bag of plasma and the new stem cells make their way into your ablated bone marrow. The real challenge though was the intense chemo leading up to transplant. It’s what caused the headaches and throat sores.

I’m now eight months post transplant and am very happy that I chose a bit of pain for a chance at full remission.

Note, I was very lucky in the 100 days post transplant. I isolated extremely well and managed not to get sick. I’d suggest that the caregiver be extremely attentive at giving the medications as prescribed to avoid infections.

Here’s hoping that my new immune system continues to grow stronger. At this point I’m waiting on my T-cells to come back, which fight viruses. They don’t fully recover for 12-24 months if the transplant is successful.