Great, from first hand experience I can tell you that you’ll be in excellent hands with the transplant teams in Rochester. They’ve been my lifeline for the past 3 years.

As I mentioned, the leukemia I had required the need for an unrelated donor as my cells couldn’t be used. That being the case, my transplant process was a bit more involved and the recovery much longer. The advantage of using your own cells (autologous transplant) will be a greatly reduced amount of pre-transplant conditioning chemo, with your stay in Rochester around a month instead of 100 + days.

One of our members, (@countrygirlusa, just had her transplant this week, using her own cells. She’s doing really well and hopefully she’s online and can give you some feedback of her transplant which is very similar to what yours will be.

To give you a brief idea, and this will be explained to you when you meet with your transplant doctor next week, you’ll be needing to stay in Rochester for about a month. I think you’re already familiar with Rochester because of prior appointments.
My suggestion is to find a hotel close to the clinic as you’ll need to be going there daily pre and post transplant for lots of pre transplant appointments, blood tests and follow up appointments. My husband and I ended up at the Marriott Residence Inn on Center street. It’s connected via the subway to the Clinic and so convenient!
If you stay for a month or more, I’d suggest you sign a month lease because you can avoid paying county room tax, which cuts out quite a chunk of the lodging cost. Most insurances will also give a housing allowance for transplants so you might look into that.

The process for you will be having tests prior to the transplant to make sure your body is physically able to cope with the transplant such as monitoring your heart, X-rays, scans. There will be educational classes on diet and life changes. You’ll see about 25 appointments popping up on your Mayo portal when the time comes. Don’t panic! These all go very smoothly and the schedule looks more daunting that it is. I looked at my schedule with eyes wide and said, “Don’t they know I’m a 65 year old woman with cancer???! My husband and I joked about being Mayo-naised! It was like being in a blender of medical smoothie! 😅 I swear it’s something only Mayo can pull off!
After that, you’ll be given some meds which will encourage your marrow to produce more cells so that you can start harvesting in prep for the transplant. Harvesting is very similar to donating blood, except the cells are extracted and your blood is circulated right back into you.
When that’s complete, within a few days you’ll undergo the conditioning chemo and then given the infusion of your cells. You’ll be in the hospital in Station 94 of the Methodist hospital. (Not St Mary’s). You’ll be in familiar territory on the main campus. ☺️
Your recovery will be at your hotel or apartment. You will be seriously immunocompromised so you’ll want to keep that in mind when lodging. We opted for a 2 bed, 2 bath suite with a full kitchen. It was home for 4 months and having the 2 separate bathrooms and bedrooms was worth it.

Do you know who your transplant doctor will be?