MPAL post haploidentical transplant and TBI
Hi everyone,
I had my transplant on the 22nd of June and I’m still in hospital as of the 3rd of July.
My transplant was a haploidentical allogeneic stem cell transplant a half-matched donor transplant. Because of my protocol, I needed 8 sessions of total body irradiation (TBI) before transplant.
Honestly, TBI hit me hard. After the second session I basically stopped eating. It felt like the lining of my stomach was completely messed up, and I was even vomiting during the TBI sessions. After transplant, things continued to be rough.
The good news is that I’ve now reached 100% donor chimerism, which is amazing and something I’m really grateful for. But physically and mentally, I’m still struggling a lot.
I’m still afraid of eating because of how bad the nausea and vomiting have been. I’ve also had excessive thick/foamy saliva for weeks, to the point where it has affected my sleep and made it hard to drink or eat properly.
When I came into hospital, I weighed 83.4 kg. I’m now down to 67.3 kg, so I’ve lost a lot of weight. They tried putting in a feeding tube, but because of vomiting and my stomach being so unsettled, I ended up vomiting the NG tube out.
At this point, the doctors are hoping to send me home next Friday. Now the main goals are managing all my medications by mouth, keeping food/fluids down, and being able to move around by myself safely.
It has definitely not been a fun ride. I’m exhausted, but I’m trying to focus on the fact that I’ve made it this far and I may only have around one week to go.
Good luck to me and to anyone else going through this.