i was a stem cell donor

My eldest sister who is 32 years old right now was diagnosed of Hodgkin's Lymphoma last year (2009). She was having signs and symptoms late of 2008. First, she was complaining of back pain for awhile that it was hard for her to sleep at night, then later on she started to have lumps around her neck area and later on she found a lump on her groin, and what my mother and other two sisters, and I also noticed of her losing weight. She went to get checked (diagnostics) and they did a biopsy on her lumps and it was confirmed she had cancer. What we found shocking and disbelief was that she was in Stage IV.
She went to Memorial Sloan Kettering for treatment. The plan was to do chemotherapy for six months and see the chance of recovery. After six months my sister's lumps had disappeared, we thought "Thank you GOD our prayers had been heard", but that only lasted for a month, the lumps came back again! I cannot speak for my sister, but I remember of her telling me of feeling tired, frustrated, sad and feeling of giving up. We kept telling her to be strong and have patience and be hopeful and also to believe in miracles. We pointed out to her our father as an example.

My father on his 56th birthday (7/26/2009)-
we share the same birthday

My father had a history of kidney failure he was suffering from it since 1992 until 2006 when he finally had kidney transplant. Year 2009 was a test and a trial for us as a family.  That August my father underwent for abdominal surgery (Downstate). The surgery wasn't successful, he was in the hospital for almost a month on life support. We saw him deteriorating, but even that I was still hoping for a miracle, I remember bargaining and promising to HIM.It was then my mother asked us if she should sign the DNR, we looked at how his quality of life would be in the future if we still keep him on the vent- no voice(from tracheostomy), no legs (he developed gangrene on his lower extremities), no stomach. It was really hard to decide this because my father couldn't speak--he tried to but he ended up getting frustrated because we couldn't understand him, his eyes were open, but his hands were too swollen to write. We know he was in pain and that he was tired we see it in his eyes. We talked to him and stuff, the only thing I forgot to mention to my father was that, I was the only match for my Ate (big sister), and a potential donor. My father passed away September 25, 2009 RIP. It felt like he is somewhere else like on a long vacation, but when I go back to the day I did his eulogy and whenever I see his name on the headstone, that's when I swallow everything and accept that he is gone.

I'm not sure if my sister had her treatment yet (inset).

I made her one of Amira's godmother.

Enough about that different sad story of my life. My Ate was not really sure about the stem cells transplant because of its effectiveness. She was telling us about it even if she gets the transplant it is not guaranteed that it's going to cure her. We just told her to hope for the best and to think positive. It was last year I did the peripheral stem cell collection procedure. The procedure took one and a half day instead of two days because I produced enough stem cells for my sister's transplant from the injections (Neupogen) that I have to get. Before the whole procedure, I actually had to get a central line (Hickman) because I have poor veins on my arms. When I had the procedure, I was having muscle twitching due to hypocalcemia -which is expected in this kind of procedure, and I was feeling a little queasy and cold also. One of the nurses gave me Tums and asked my husband to get ice cream or a slice of pizza for me. And also the nurse kinda slowed down the Apheresis? machine, so my symptoms won't get worst. All in all it was not bad, it's just that you have to sit or lay in one place for 3-4 hours for the collection. I think the only worst part was when they took out my central line and that was it.

Myself and Ate (11/27/10)

My sister today is doing well (Thanks the LORD), still on lots of meds (anti rejection). She could manage driving from NJ to NYC. She would tell me that we are twin sisters.