Jour -3 : Chemo again

We have entered the conditioning regimen, which consists of:

1. killing the leukemia cells in my marrow
2. destroying my immune system to allow the transplanted marrow from the donnor to thrive in my body

So it is a heavy dose of chemo that has kickstarted the process (cyclophosphamide 60 mg/kg/day over yesterday and today). This chemo is an old friend of mine, encountered in my first Hyper-CVAD cycles that I endured 2 months ago and which helped me kill off the bulk of the leukemia. I do not expect too much trouble from it.

What really scares me is the Total Body Irradiation (TBI) which follows tomorrow, to complete the conditioning. A large dose of 13 Grays fractionned over 3 days. It is almost painless at the time, I am told, but lots of possible secondary effects are to be expected in the short and the long term. I plan to upload some pictures of the procedure here.