Of course, there's no substitute for a roundtable discussion with the Stepping Stones group, but occasionally questions might come up at the opposite end of the month. If you're organized, you write down what you want to discuss. Others either forget or remember everything on the first Wednesday of the month. But thanks to the World Wide Web, there's an alternative.It's called the BMT-Talk mailing list, and it has a web-based interface to subscribing, but everything else takes place by plain old email. the group was started in 1994 by Laurel Simmons, a BMT survivor who was treated in 1987 for CML. In her own words, "Patients, caregivers, health care providers, donors, and all others interested in bone marrow transplantation are welcome."
Here's how it works: Go to the web interface page and select "Join the BMT-TALK list." You will be prompted for your name and email address. Once you click on submit, you'll begin receiving email messages from across the globe. Instructions on how to use the list (including how to unsubscribe) will also be emailed to you. You'll meet people with a range of diagnoses (leukemia, anemia, breast cancer, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, even lupus) who've had every kind of marrow transplant (related, unrelated, autologous, stem cell, partial matches) and sometimes two or, in one case, three transplants. Discussions cover topics like new drugs, innovations, post-BMT health, and pretty much anything else you might hear at Stepping Stones.
For those with email-only accounts, you can still get connected. send an email to listserv@listserv.acor.org with only the following in the message body:
subscribe bmt-talk your first and last nameLeave the subject blank or put a dash if your mail program requires it.Technical Note: When you subscribe to the mailing list, you will receive all email sent to the list. Be sure your email account will be able to handle the capacity. A digest form of the list is also available.