@deb913
Hi Deb
We are so glad you found this forum and reached out about the decision you are facing.
My husband, at 64 yo, was diagnosed with high risk AML in January this year. It came out of nowhere and we were told he had a year to live. Shocked and heartbroken, we sought treatment at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, where they immediately started induction treatment to reach remission and said SCT was his only chance to beat this and be cured. We sought a second opinion at MD Anderson a couple months later regarding the transplant. They reassured us this was the best plan of care.
We were told all the risks in great detail but one of the biggest factors before proceeding with the transplant was his fitness, that is, his overall health and strength. Thankfully, he had no other chronic health issues, and was in great physical condition, waterskiing several times a week just last summer. He reached complete remission after 3 months of induction therapy and had his re-birth day on June 12,2024 with the cells of a 34 yo man (11/11 match) from Germany, to whom we are beyond grateful and hope to meet someday to thank personally. Today he is day 80 post transplant and doing very well, with no evidence of disease present. We have hope for the future, waking up very day grateful for another day, and trusting our medical team to guide him to the day we can consider him fully cured.

If it helps you to know this, the stem cell team has commented to him that his fitness level made a great difference in his recovery from the transplant. Going into this when your health is at its best can be a wise choice, if one has a choice, although I empathize with the difficulty of this decision. I also must say that the transplant process, especially if you have it performed at a health center that does a lot of them annually, can be trusted to carry you through competently because they have the experience and expertise to manage everything, every step of the way.

Please, as you go through your next steps in this process, do not hesitate to ask questions or seek support here. Lori is the lifeline so many of us found and many of us want to give back and help others as well.