This is my story: my story as I told it at the Relay For Life a few years ago.

Hi, my name is Marcus Grassl and I’m very happy to be here with all of you today to share my story.  Twenty four years ago, in March 1986, when I was 2, the doctors gave my parents the devastating news that I had Neuroblastoma (stage 4) and I had about a 10% chance of survival. My tumor was the size of a grapefruit and was located on the right side of my abdomen. It also wrapped around my aorta, liver and kidneys. It had also spread throughout my bone marrow. The outlook for my future was awful but my docter, Dr. Tannous, said that one of out of ten kids do survive and I could be that kid. Thank God I was.

I was hospitalized at University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City. Shortly after I was admitted they did surgery so they could biopsy the tumor and possibly remove it. They couldn’t remove it because of where it was and how much I might bleed. So they closed me up and hoped once they started the chemotherapy the tumor would shrink. I received 3 different chemo. drugs every 3 weeks. I spent 3-5 days in the hospital each time. I had bone marrow aspirations, bone scans, and cat scans a lot, which were awful. I also got pretty sick and lost a lot of weight and my hair! But the chemo. did work and by August the tumor had shrunk from a grapefruit size down to a golf ball size. Time to try and remove it again-and this time it was successful! My bone marrow also seemed to be free of any cancer cells. It looked like everything was going my way. The doctors in Iowa City were optimistic but they felt I should go through a bone marrow transplant for the best chances of long-term survival. At that time it was an investigational procedure only a few hospitals in the country were doing them. My doctor felt that UCLA had the best record and I should go there. My bone marrow transplant was an autologous transplant, meaning they used my own bone marrow because I didn’t have any brothers or sisters at the time. I went out to L.A. in September for the bone marrow harvest with my mom. We went back in November to start the preparation for the transplant. They told us I had about a 50/50 chance of long-term survival. Before the transplant I had 14 days of radiation and chemotherapy. The doctors said it’s like setting off a little bomb inside of you. Then it was time for the transplant, which was the day before Thanksgiving. Most of the doctors and nurses said this would be an easy day-not much more difficult than having a blood transfusion. That wasn’t exactly the case for me!!

They started the transfusion which was hooked to a IV line into my chest. The doctor, nurse and my parents were at my bedside. Within seconds I sat up and said, “I don’t feel good” –I then collapsed and the EKG monitor showed a flat line and I was in a cardiac arrest! Over the next hour a roomful of doctors, nurses tried hard to keep me alive. Later one of the these doctors, told my parents they were on their very last drug before calling the code off. The last drug worked and I was stabilized. Now the doctors had to decide what went wrong and how to give me the bone marrow I needed to live. Because the bone marrow sat at room temperature for an hour, a lot of the cells died, they also lost a lot of bone marrow cells when they washed it-trying to remove anything that might have caused the arrest. After all of that, only 10% of the bone marrow cells were left. They decided to try and give me that amount and see what happens. So 6 hours after the arrest they tried again. This time everything went well.

Now we just had to wait to see if the small amount of bone marrow would start to work or engraft. Usually it takes about 14 days to start seeing new cells and on the 14th day my blood counts started rising. All of the doctors thought this was a miracle-absolutely unbelievable. Over the next few weeks my counts continued to improve.

Throughout this 1st month I was in a semi-coma state. Nobody could tell if I could hear, see or understand. This is probably a good thing because I didn’t remember any of it. There are a lot of things your body goes through after all that chemo and radiation and I was not aware of most of it. On Christmas day I started saying my 1st words – I asked for a “coke”. I came home 2 months after I got there on Jan. 6. The doctors never did figure out what caused my cardiac arrest.
Because of the arrest and other complications I had to learn to talk, sit-up and walk. I had Physical Therapy for years. My left side is still weak, but I’m doing well today.

It took 6 years before my doctors would say I was cured-but finally that day did come. I have been cancer free ever since. I am so happy for all the people who helped me along the way. I’d like to thank my parents, the doctors and nurses, my family and God for all the support and love over all these years.

Today I am very healthy and cancer-free!!