Life of a Childhood Cancer Warrior - Emi's Journey

Bone marrow transplant

Emese continued chemo until February 2018. Then she was declared NED, so we started to prepare her for her first bone marrow transplant. A bmt is used to replace the sick, cancerous stem cells with healthy stem cells.This way the body should stop to produce cancerous cells. Because Emese was stage 4, cancer spread into her bone marrow and different parts of her body, so her stem cells weren't healthy anymore. Her stem cells were collected after her second round of chemo, in September 2017, because she was in remission, so there wasn't cancer in her bone marrow. A bmt is super hard on a person's body. Before a bmt, there is given a week of high dose chemo to kill every last possible cancer cell. The patient has no immune system this way, everything is dangerous for them, even a cold. That's why the patient is completely isolated before and after the bmt. The stem cells are given the patient just like a blood transfusion. It usually takes ca. 15 days after the bmt day to see an engraftment. Engraftment simply means that the new stem cells replaced the old ones, so the bmt worked. During the days before engraftment, a patient goes through many side effects e.g. mucositis, nausea, pain in the entire body, loss of appetite, fatigue etc. It's the hardest part of treatment. And Emese was supposed to do two bmt, neuroblastoma is a really tricky type of cancer. So, her first bmt was on February 24, 2018. High dose chemo hit her hard, she suffered from all the side effects I named above. And a little side note, we haven't left the hospital once since July. That's a really long time. I will just share a part out of my journal which I wrote 7 days after bmt.

"You have been feeling horrible for 2 weeks now. High dose chemo already caused you so much nausea and pain. But bone marrow transplant... I have never seen you suffering this much, just forget the weeks in the ICU, they were much worse. No chemo in the world hit you this hard. You are so incredibly nauseous, we basically live in the bathroom. It's so hard for me to see you like this, I can't do anything to help you. You are hooked up to a continuous morphine pump, you are in so much pain. You are not yourself these days. You already hated to get poked before bmt, but now you completely freak out. You scream horrible things in my face, which really hurts me if I'm honest. You are not like this. The pain you are feeling changes you. And this change scares me. The only thing that didn't change is your love for cuddling with me, and I definitely won't complain. So I just sit with you in the bathroom or your bed and hold you, waiting until you feel better again. When you engrafted, we can go home! After 8 long months we will see our brother again. I can't wait to leave this place for 4 weeks, we need to come back again then for your second bone marrow transplant.

This evening something really horrible happened. They placed you a NG tube, so you get all the nutrition you need. You didn't eat at all for 3 weeks now. A NG tube is actually a good thing, but you absolutely hated the placement. They pushed a tube through your nose into your stomach. And you tried to fight the nurse who placed the tube. But you couldn't because I held you down. It's a wonder you still don't hate me. I held you down so often already, I can't even count it anymore. But you sat down on my lap and hugged  me. You are the kindest and forgiving girl ever, I love you so much Emese. I will keep fighting for you baby girl. I won't give up. You got this."