Matt Deyo

In March 1998, my senior year in high school, I was diagnosed with bone cancer. My type of cancer, Osteogenic Sarcoma, is commonly found in adolescents and is considered curable if caught early, but fatal if left unattended. There is a six-month window in which this type of cancer must be dealt with, so once my doctors found it they moved quickly to treat it.

I went from being pulled from a morning algebra class for a doctor's appointment to being told I would need a tutor to help me finish high school, because I would be starting months of chemotherapy.

The type of cancer I had requires a very aggressive chemo protocol. The treatment plan called for six weeks of chemotherapy, followed by removing the tumor in my right leg plus another 40 weeks of chemotherapy "just to be safe" to make sure they got all the cancer.

I was lucky in that I did well with the chemo treatments, which even surprised the oncologists at the University of Minnesota. It was a long ordeal. In the space of 14 months, I spent 280 days in the hospital for treatments or minor complications.

I didn't have a lot of side effects from three of the four chemo drugs I received. Mostly I just felt run down. However, what I learned is that chemo is very cumulative. I started out being able to play some football with friends after my first few treatments. But the further I went into the protocol, the more the side effects from the drugs built up.

For me, the major side effect was on my platelets. About six or seven months into the chemo treatment, I started having minor problems with nosebleeds. By November, I could no longer control the nose bleeding. It was then I knew I was facing a blood transfusion, which really frightened me. I'm not sure why the thought bothered me so much. Perhaps it was just the idea of receiving someone else's blood or admitting that now things were not going so well. Sure enough, tests confirmed my fears that my platelet count was too low. I was having problems getting my blood to clot and needed a transfusion. I received 6 units of red cells which helped a lot. I continued to need and receive blood off and on for the next month.

At this point, I finally reached the end of my chemo treatment program. I only had three weeks to go and one six-day admission to the hospital. But during that final treatment I sat up in bed one day with a nose bleed again. Only this time the bleeding was much heavier than before and it would not stop. I got light headed and called the nurse for help. The bleeding got much worse and I passed out. Consequently, I received six more units of red cells to prevent me from bleeding to death, because my platelet count was down to 5,000—when it should have been around 300,000. Then I received another six units of red blood cells. Unfortunately, after that second transfusion I had a transfusion reaction. This meant I could not receive more units of red blood cells. Now I needed type-specific Apheresis platelets.

I was very fortunate on that day because someone else had recently donated Apheresis platelets. I didn't have any anticipation about receiving what I needed because I knew they were available. If I had to have waited 24 hours for the platelets I needed I would not be here today. But I didn't.

After just one Apheresis transfusion the bleeding stopped, my platelet count came back up and I was able to start re-cooping. Later, I started to bleed again so I needed two more platelet transfusions. But I was very lucky and came out of this emergency okay.

The point I want to make is I was a "good" cancer patient. I didn't have any complications. I really only had five bad days out of 14 months that were rough. Yet, I used 90 donations of red blood cells plus many Apheresis products.

I would like all potential or current blood donors to know there is a lot to deal with as a cancer patient. There are many unknowns. Even in my situation where the doctors reassured me the outcome was good—that I was going to live. Just dealing with the day-to-day stuff is very tough because you lose control over your life. You also lose some dignity because you are put in a hospital bed, at the mercy of a system and people you don't fully understand. There is so much to cope with. But the one thing I didn't have to think about was the availability of blood products, even at the end of my treatment when I was laying in bed bleeding, I did not question the blood would be there when I needed it. The reason I didn't question it was because there are people who donate blood on a regular basis.

I can't begin to convey how it feels within the space of a few hours to go from passing out due to a loss of blood to feeling pretty good because a few people donated blood to keep you alive. It is definitely appreciated.

Thank you to everyone who has donated blood—it is so important.