Now enter the realm of Acute Lymphoblasic Leukemia; it is like entering another world. This is an extremely aggressive form of cancer; oftentimes killing a person within days or a couples weeks if left untreated. And the treatment is anything but "short".
The treatment protocol is extremely long and extremely aggressive. To my knowledge (I could be wrong so don't quote me on this) but blood Cancers are the only form of cancer where the treatment requires a minimum of a month stay in the hospital to go through the chemo program.
The crazy thing though is that, although extremely brutal and demanding, the treatment program isn't the most misunderstood part. Treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia is is finite and measureable, making it easy to prepare mentally for. You are given your treatment program for the next two years the day you are diagnosed and it goes like clockwork from there.
The gray area comes near the end of the treatment, Post Transplant. For most forms of Acute Leukemia, especially Philadelphia Chromosome Positive Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, the "official" treatment of the disease ends with a Bone Marrow Transplant. This is where things enter that grey misunderstood area and things get tough.
Up until the Bone Marrow Transplant every step of the way is mapped out in detail for you. You know exactly what drugs you will be taking, and have a pretty good idea how you will fell at that step of the way. As you are progressing through the protocol the light you see at the end of the tunnel is that Bone Marrow Transplant. It is the procedure that will give your Acute Leukemia that one last kick in the ass and kill all remants of it (hopefully) for good.
Unfortunately, it is easy to fixate on this as I learnt the hard way. The entire way through the treatment protocol the Bone Marrow Transplant was seen as the end objective or end of my battle.
What I wasn't prepared for was just how hard and dangerous the actual Bone Marrow Transplant really was. To top it all off I figured after a couple months I would be recovered from the transplant and be getting back to my normal life.
I was definitely not prepared mentally for what lay ahead after the the Bone Marrow Transplant. I can easily say that the Bone Marrow Transplant process has been way harder than the chemotherapy protocol.
It is a road full of setbacks and dangers that no one prepares you for. I won't go into all the setbacks and dangers along the road to recovery from the Bone Marrow Transplant today as they are the topics of many upcoming posts but it is something that even if you tried would be difficult to prepare for.
So what makes Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia such a misunderstood cancer? Well unlike most Cancer's the fight doesn't end with the end of treatment. After treatment has finished with the Bone Marrow Transplant it is the just beginning of a whole new battle; the Battle to Recover.
Unfortunately, the Battle to Recovery doesn't follow a nicely mapped out protocol. It is reactive and all dependent on how your body and new immune system are getting along with each other, which if they decide not too can lead to life threatening symptoms.
And to make matters worse, there is no end date to focus on and work towards. The recovery from a Bone Marrow Transplant can take many years or even worse a patient may never recover from it.
So I repeat why Adult Lymphoblastic Leukemia misunderstood? Because the "end" of the treatment is not really the end, just the beginning of another fight. And from there you really have no idea what you are getting into and for how long.
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