bushbaby

Great article, Nurse Doyle! The type of bone marrow transplantation that most often happens is simply the cells transplanted from a donor (no longer a full bone marrow transplant). This type of transplant is known as a stem cell transplant. Many probably associate this with stem cells from fetal tissue but this is not the case. These are hematopoetic stem cells from a donor or more simply baby blood cells from a donor. Interestingly enough, some people's blood types actually change after the transplant because essentially the recipient's blood cells have been wiped out by intensive chemotherapy and are replaced with the donor's blood cells. I used to work at University of Washington in Seattle on the stem cell transplant unit. These patients went through so much and were the most heroic people I have ever met! I urge anyone to please join marrow.org!!

Nurse Doyle,

I rarely LOL (laugh out loud) even though I type that I LOL to appease others, but this time I LOL and COL (cried out loud)!!! Brings back fond memories for me when I placed many a catheter in men with urinary retention. The description, "I pointed my patient’s penis towards the ceiling and slowly lowered it as I tried to advance the catheter further", is so poetically accurate that I AOL (applaud out loud).

I really liked your article on the appendix. Keep up the good work!