You’re taking Rock Collecting to the extreme! 😂 Landscaping projects are rewarding, with greenery or rocks. Fun to see what you can accomplish. I get it…my bestie moved to New Mexico and has been landscaping her yard with rocks…meaning she’s moving them from one part of the yard to another. When she lived in our hometown in east central Wisconsin, her yard was glorious and an annual garden walk entrant. So I worried when she moved to the arid desert that she’d miss signs of life! Haha. She’s resilient and living among rocks, hardpan and 🌵.

To your question, yes, the demyelination was a side effect my stem cell transplant from what’s called GVHD or graft vs host disease. When someone receives a solid organ transplant such as liver, heart, lung, they take anti-rejection meds for life so that the organ isn’t rejected by their immune system because it is a foreign element.
In a stem fell transplant, the new immune system looks at the body as the invader! But the advantage is, at some point usually within 6 + months or sometimes much longer, the immune system and body start playing nice together. But before that happens, if anything looks ‘suspicious’ the immune system will do what it’s supposed to…it will seek and destroy offenders.
As we go off our meds, the gvhd can start to surface. It’s generally controlled wonderfully with steroids, like stamping out small fires until the threat disappears.
For some reason, my new cells (from a 20 year old male donor), about 6 months post-transplant, decided they’d be a gang of thugs and start a turf war along my spinal cord, wreaking all kinds of havoc. I eventually lost feeling from waist to toes. A trip to the Mother Ship had me up and walking again within a week. But there were months of treatment with rituximab and Solumedrol. Anyway, it was really good news to see there’s nothing abnormal anymore on my cord and the thugs have found other menial jobs.
I did have some weird symptoms (still do) that arose in a couple months and that prompted the latest MRI. The good news is that it’s not GVHD. So I’ll go back in early June for a neuro consult. I’ve never been this age before, sooo, it could all be age related! I feel 24 inside but my 69 year old body didn’t get the memo. We needed to rule out that my little thugs weren’t out looking for trouble again that isn’t there! They are doing an amazing job now of keeping me very healthy. We’ve reached an amicable accord. ☺️

I’ll keep Val in my thoughts Monday for only good news on the PETscan! He’s an old pro now with the meds for round 4…doesn’t make it easier but at least it’s predictable.
He’ll never be unremarkable!! 😂 But we do hope we see that word on his tests!
Hugs to both…💗

Hi @valandsheri! Thought it was time to check in on you two! How’s Mr Ray of Sunshine? ☺️