He had Crohn's for 13 years. Here is some info about the transplant procedure from his website. On his website he tells his whole story if you would like to check that out as well
The Transplant Procedure
Crohn's disease is an auto-immune disease meaning that the immune system doesn't function the way it should and attacks healthy cells. The idea of the stem cell transplant is that it destroys your present immune system and 'resets' it to start over fresh. This is done by harvesting your stems cell (you can use someone else's but that is risky due to the possibility of rejection) and then killing your immune
system with chemo and/or radiation. The stem cells that were taken out earlier are purified and then transfused back into you. These stem cells then start producing fresh blood cells that don't carry your previous immune system and the Crohn's disease that goes with it! That's the idea anyway.
With the exception of the time when I had a fever due to infection, and required special attention, this entire procedure was conducted on an ‘out patient’ basis, with daily trips to the hospital for treatment which lasted anywhere from 2-8 hours. The total time from beginning to end was about 3 months with the key periods of activity as discussed below.
The stem cell collection stage was done in December 2007. It involved one round of chemo (to “trick” the body to produce more stem cells to replace the blood cells the chemo has killed). For several days I also had to take a drug that stimulates the marrow to produce stem cells, to promote the stem cell growth and make them release into the blood. On the harvesting day I was hooked up to a machine that basically filtered the stem cells out of the blood. This process was fairly easy but I did have severe pain in my bones one night from the medication. The stem cells are produced in the bone marrow and the drug I was given to stimulate cell growth was making the bone marrow produce more stem cells than normal. This build up of stem cells in my bone marrow caused pressure on the bones that was very painful. They give you pain killers for this though so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Because of the chemo, my hair also started to fall out about 2 weeks after the treatment.
The next stage was the actual transplant stage. I had a PICC (Peripherally inserted central catheter) line inserted in my arm. This is a line that goes in your arm and directly to the heart so any medications they give you are circulated directly around your blood stream. I then had 4 days of chemo as well as another drug to destroy my immune system. I never felt bad from the chemo. I didn't get nauseous or anything. I don't know however, if that is typical. While on the chemo, though, I had to drink fluids and pee every hour because it can burn your bladder and cause serious problems. After four days this can become fairly tiring, but in all honestly it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be.
After that, I had a day off with no drugs, and then I went in to the hospital for radiation in the morning, and the transplant in the afternoon. Having radiation wasn't a big deal. I just lay down on a board while I was passed under a machine. I had a very low dose of radiation. I felt crummy after, just really tired and had no energy. I just wanted to stay in bed and not move. (There are risks associated with radiation and chemo, but I was made aware them and the risks of the entire procedure, and wanted to proceed.) The transplant itself was simple. The previously frozen stem cells were thawed then transfused back into me through my PICC line.
