Preparing Your Body

Your Central Line
During your BMT treatment, you'll be given lots of medicines/injections, blood transfusions, and other IV fluids like liquid nutrients several times a day. You'll also need to have blood samples drawn and checked every day. To make this easier on you, your doctor will give you a central line—a tube that is surgically placed in your chest. It will connect to a large vein, and enable your BMT team to take care of you without poking you with needles several times a day.
Chemotherapy
Before you receive your new bone marrow cells, doctors need to prepare your body for them. About a week before your transplant, you’ll start receiving chemotherapy. You may have received chemotherapy before, but this time the doses will be much stronger. They not only have to kill any cancer cells still eft in your body, they also have to destroy your bone marrow to make room for the new, donated marrow to grow. (Chemotherapy can sometimes have ncomfortable side effects. See page 16 for suggestions for dealing with them.)
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