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WELCOME TO GREG'S HOME!!!!

This is the story of Greg Miklas seen here as "Guido," one of the famous Klement's Sausage Company Racing Sausages. With him are his wife, Julie, his son Aaron, and his daughters, Erica and Abby. Greg was diangosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in April, 1992. Greg underwent standard CHOP chemotherapy and was considered cured after five years. Unfortunately, in November, 1998, just two weeks after moving into a brand new home, Greg underwent a biopsy for a lump in his neck, and was told that the cancer was back. Greg is officially diagnosed with follicular mixed cell non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, Stage IV. After undergoing numerous forms of chemotherapy, including Fludarabine, CHOP and Rituxan (twice), Greg's cancer is still not in remission. Our next step is a bone marrow transplant.

When a person needs a bone marrow transplant, you need to have a donor. A bone marrow transplant is one of the few transplants that someone can have with a "live" donor. Greg's younger brother, Tommy, will be his donor. The procedure for the donor is relatively simple and is done on an outpatient basis. Tom will be admitted in the morning and by 5:00 p.m. his cells will be running into Greg! This is the most amazing of procedures. After all the chemo and all the radiation, it all boils down to just another IV drip. It really is quite anticlimactic! When I talk to people about a transplant, they automatically think it is a major surgical procedure. This is the only transplant that is simply a matter of another IV drip! However, the procedure for the donee is quite risky. The procedure for the donor is quite simple. There is some pain and soreness for a couple days, but Tom should be able to return to work on Monday, after having donated on Friday! Once Greg undergoes high-dose chemo and total body irradiation (TBI), he will have no immune system left (think about the "boy in the plastic bubble"). If he had an unrelated, unknown, donor, and they decided to back out after the chemo and TBI, Greg would not survive because a person cannot live without an immune system. Greg's sister, Jody, and brothers Tom and Gary all quite willingly went through tissue typing to see if any of them were a match. Tissue typing is a very simple procedure wherein a bit of blood is taken, and then put through about a million tests to see if it matches Greg's. I told Greg's mom ( she is in her 60's) that if one of them didn't match, she would just have to have another kid! That certainly relieved the tension -- she got quite a kick out of that one!

UPDATE: August 15, 2005: It's been over FIVE YEARS now since Greg's transplant. Unbelieveable as that is! Our lives have changed quite a bit since then. A year ago, we moved 250 miles to the "Middle of Nowhere!" for a new job for Greg. He came down with pneumonia after working there for six months and they promptly FIRED HIM! We know it's because he was sick, but there's nothing we can do about it. The owner is an idiot and we're happy that he's no longer stuck in such a horrible environment.

With the loss of his job, we were in a bind and weren't sure what to do. No one wants to hire a middle-aged man with previous health issues. We decided to combine our love of camping and RVing with our own business and the RVing Outpost was born! Our new store opened it's doors on June 17, 2005 and is filled with RV parts, supplies and accessories, fishing gear and bait, gourmet foods and everything you need to cook over a campfire! We are thrilled to be able to do something like this, and are also scared to death! We have put everything we own on the line for this venture, but we felt it's something we had to do! Please feel free to visit our on-line store and drop us a note! We'd love to hear from you!

Hello Everyone! Well this is it! In another 15 minutes, Greg will begin receiving Tommy's cells. Tommy's extraction went well. The doctors said they "got a lot of good cells!" Greg has already started on Cyclosporine, an anti-rejection drug that he will continue to take for at least a year. The doctor took some pictures of the extraction for us and we will be putting those on the site, along with pictures of the radiation chamber and the transplant itself. As soon as I have some spare time, I'll be working on that. Greg is feeling OK, but tired. His counts have not totally dropped yet, but by next week, he is going to be feeling pretty weak.

GREAT NEWS!!!! Greg's sister, Jody, who works at Miller Brewery, was able to secure a Miller Brewery laptop for Greg to use while in the hospital!! Now Greg will be able to continue his diary and communicate with the outside world during his extended hospital stay. We don't know how she did it, but we felt it only appropriate to add a big giant THANK YOU to the folks at Miller Brewery and to Jody! THANKS JODY, AND THANKS MILLER!!!!! Please click on the link to the left to go directly to the Miller Brewery website.

Here's a "real" picture of Greg with our kids, Aaron, Erica and Abby at Niagara Falls in Canada. We took a family vacation in the summer of 1999 to Sea World in Ohio -- it was Aaron's dream to see a "real live killer whale," so we figured Sea World was the best way to accomplish that dream! We decided to take a side trip (only 4 hours from Sea World) to Niagara Falls. It was interesting to see how the kids reacted to a place that didn't have any rides or other kid-related attractions! They were AWESTRUCK! This picture is taken on the Canadian side, so you are viewing the American Falls.

Click on the graphic above to view Greg's Diary.

This is Greg's brother, Tom, his bone marrow donor. He likes to call Tom MIK BUD. Tom is the one who, along with his sister and other brother, agreed to sibling match typing. Thank you Jody and Gary and thank you MIK BUD for being a perfect match! We both love you all and are grateful!

Click on the doctor below to learn more about Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma

Click on the artist here to view more paintings (OK, fine, pictures) of Greg and the rest of the family.

Click here to view the 2nd photo album

2000 Wisconsin State Fair -- Please take the time to visit this page and see what Klement's Sausage Company has done for us this time,

The following pages deal with specific information on Greg's BMT. Please be sure to view these pages as they will help you to understand Greg's diary entries and the procedures involved in a bone marrow transplant. Just about every page will also have pictures of Greg going through these procedures. More pages will be added as time permits. Sorry folks, but I've got my hands full right now, and one page at a time is about all I can handle. Please check back frequently for more information. As Greg stated in his diary, things happened so fast that there just wasn't enough time in a day to keep up with it all.

TOTAL BODY RADIATION What is it? How is it administered?

CHEMOTHERAPY: What is it? How does it work?

MEDICATIONS: View the list of drugs Greg has taken, and why

THE HICKMAN: Greg had his Hickman catheter placed on April 6, 2000, the day of admission to Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital to begin the BMT process.

Click here to view Tom's Harvest Page! The most awesome part of this whole site is the selfless act of love from Tom to his brother. Read about Tom's Bone Marrow Harvest here!

HOSPITAL PHOTO ALBUM : This album deals solely with Greg's hospital stay. Click here for the latest photos!!

Greg's transplant page is done! Click here to view the photos and information from April 12, 2000 -- TRANSPLANT DAY -- DAY 0!

Click here to go to Greg's "Links" Page to view links to sites we feel are important and/or interesting

Our old counter took a dump on us. Suffice it to say that over 1,000 have viewed our website. We are grateful and thank each and every one of you for visiting. With any luck, this site will help others along journey we call BMT.

Click here to view "OLD" guestbook entries

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