My Pre-Transplant Life

Okay, so I had a pretty "normal" life up to the age of 20. I started playing guitar in 1984 at 17. I jammed with some great guys in a band called Cyanide and things were going pretty good until Sept. 1987. At that time I started having strange "falling spells". Whenever I would lose my balance my body would go stiff as a board and I would fall, without being able to break that fall. This went on for a few months then it worsened to the point that I could no longer even walk, I needed a wheelchair. Needless to say, my guitar playing days were over at that time, and the members of Cyanide went their ways. One has since passed away (Wesley N. House, R.I.P. brother, I love you!!) and another eventually left the music scene. Two others are still at it, and are extremely talented musicians.

I had numerous visits to the Mayo Clinic and they could find nothing wrong with me. They basically told me that I didn’t want to walk, and if I did really want to, I could. They sent me to numerous psychiatrists, and after I almost started to believe their bullshit, I stopped going. Then in early 1989 a friend of my Mom’s recommended a neurologist that had helped her with some back problems.

I met this new doctor in 1989 and he began to look deeper into whatever was going on with me. After a few stays in a Minneapolis hospital, he could find nothing wrong either. Then around 1992 I woke up one day with double vision. I went to my doctor in the Twin Cities and he ordered a bunch of tests, including an MRI of my head. This MRI showed some small scarring on the left side of my brain that was consistent with a neuro-muscular disease called Dystonia. After experimenting with all kinds of meds, my doc saw an article that spoke about a new drug used primarily in patients with Parkinson’s disease. The article stated that some docs saw amazing results with this med and Dystonia. I started on this drug, Artane, sometime in 1994. I was still in a wheelchair, and left my home only for appointments. That’s 7 years of social isolation and being wheelchair bound!!!

During those 7 years I studied 2 things intensely. One was the Bible, the other was guitar. I decided that if I was going to be wheelchair bound, I wanted to be as independent as I could, so I left my parents home and moved to Red Wing, MN in November of 1995 to attend a college for guitar building. I being in a wheelchair was tough and none of their equipment for guitar building was wheelchair friendly, so after my 1st year I was flunking out. I decided to go for a degree in computer support, which I did.

By 1996, thanks to the Artane, I was no longer in the chair, but used a cane to get around. By the time I graduated in Nov. of 1997, I was able to chuck the cane and only had "minor flare-ups" with Dystonia.

In January 1998 I was hired by Manpower to help with Mayo Clinic’s Y2K program, updating older computers to avoid any possible problems with the Y2K scare. After the updates were finished, Mayo kept me on working mostly on installing new computers throughout their campuses in Minnesota. My contract with Manpower expired on Dec. 31st, 1999 and Mayo chose not to renew it.

In January of 2000, I was hired with a company that cleaned carpets, furniture, drapes among other duties, for hotel chains nationwide. It was a pretty cool job as I became a crew leader and we would travel from city to city across the U.S. cleaning these hotels. We were in teams of 3 and we usually had 3 days to get the hotels done. I worked out a system that got the job done in1 to 1 ½ days so we had time to sight see as we wished. I was able to visit the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, The Golden Gate Bridge, the Grand Canyon, spent 3 weeks in Las Vegas, saw concerts at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver among other things. After about 8 months I started missing friends, family and most of all, playing guitar. I quit and came back to Rochester, MN.

After a few months of job seeking, I landed a position with All Systems Installation in Rochester, MN. They had a contract with Treasure Island Resort and Casino to wire up their new office buildings and some other upgrades in the casino area. We wired up everything from computers, to phones to closed circuit TV, and other such things. After 6 months the job at Treasure Island was done and almost all 6 of us from Rochester were laid off. So they basically hired some new guys so they could start us on the low end of the pay scale, and when the job was done they laid us off.

That brings us to March of 2001, when I got hired on with Adair Electric in Rochester, basically doing the same thing I did with All Systems. I mainly worked at the Mayo Clinic but also did other businesses and private homes as well.

On March 9th, 2001, I met an amazing woman named Megan while jamming in a friend’s basement (Mel Johnston). We kind of hit it off and started dating. After many incredibly awesome nights spent mostly at the North Star Bar, we found out that we were going to have twins!!! I thought, "Oh shit, we need to get married". So on Sept. 14th of 2001 we did just that!
On Feb. 1st, 2002, we welcomed Jacob and Joshua Rolbiecki into this world, identical twins at that!!!! In May of that year my wife Megan got an awesome opportunity to work for a company that works with organ donations. We talked about it and decided that the offer was too good to turn down so we decided that I would become a stay-at-home dad and she would go off to work.
Everything was going great for us and in April of 2003 I started giving private guitar lessons to help with extra income. Fast forward to January 14th, 2005. On that day my family welcomed Abigail Rolbiecki into this world. Now I had 3 at home to take care of!!! Life was great, and I loved it.

Then, in early April of 2007 I started having this tingling sensation in my left hand. I figured it was due to over practicing my guitar playing, trying to improve my playing for my band Stir. This tingling would continue for about 2 weeks and I thought it was Carpel Tunnel. During that 2 weeks Megan kept on me about going in to see my doctor. I finally relented and went in. At the time I went in I had a minor cough. My doctor put me through several Carpel Tunnel type tests, but nothing fell in place for that diagnosis. Since I had the cough my doc suggested we do a chest x-ray, so we did. Later that day he called and said there were some suspicious areas and that they needed to do a CT scan to find out what was up. A couple days after the CT scan he called back and asked me to come in to talk. I told him, since it sounds kind of bad just tell me on the phone. So I got Megan and we put the phone on speaker. "This is not good" the doc said. "It looks like some type of Lymphoma, but we’ll need to do more tests to nail it down." After 2 biopsies they confirmed a diagnosis of Stage 4 Diffuse Large B Cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I started my 1st round of 6 cycles of R-Chop chemo-therapy in May of ’07. A few weeks after my final round of R-Chop my PET scan showed no signs of the Lymphoma, I WAS CURED!!! Or so I thought. I had a recheck PET scan in Jan. of ’08. My doc said it showed 2 small areas and that it was not necessarily Lymphoma and wanted me to come back in 3 months for another PET scan. After I got home and thought about it for awhile I was like, there was no way I could wait that long, what if it is lymphoma? I called my doc and said I wanted a biopsy A.S.A.P. He agreed and after a few days I was told that the lymphoma had returned.
I recently finished 2 rounds of I.C.E. chemotherapy and am scheduled for a Stem-Cell transplant in early April to try and cure me of this incredibly horrid disease. I spoke to my doctor about all this and basically said, let me know WTF is up, am I going to die from this? Please be honest about your opinion. He said that his main job is Stem-Cell transplants, we are not even close to me dying and my prognosis is very good.

So there you go, my journey through life up to now. I consider myself one of the luckiest guys in the world no matter what happens, because throughout all of this I have had the rare opportunity to find out how wonderful my life really is. I have an amazing wife, 3 incredible kids that I would do ANYTHING for, a great extended family and many wonderful friends.
Peace to you all,
Steven M.