ORONO – University of Maine hockey coach Shawn Walsh was released from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., Friday and is now home in Veazie to continue his outpatient treatment.

“Returning to Maine after my stem-cell transplant this past weekend reminded me of the feeling I had when we returned to Maine after our two national championships. It’s great to be back,” said Walsh in a prepared release from UMaine. “I am looking forward to spending quality time with my children, and family and getting my strength back to 100 percent for the upcoming season.”

Walsh, who will return to NIH periodically to continue testing throughout the coming months, is suffering from a form of kidney cancer known as renal cell carcinoma and underwent a stem-cell transplant 61 days ago.

Stem cells are immature cells that develop into blood cells. If the transplant is successful, new cells will grow, multiply, and attack the cancer cells. Walsh’s brother Kevin was his stem-cell donor.

Walsh is in the final leg of his treatment program, but will not know how successful the transplant has been for quite some time.

“We don’t expect to see the tumor-fighting results until a few more months down the line, but all the indications so far point to a successful conclusion,” Walsh reported.

The 45-year-old coach said he has been pleasantly surprised at the energy level he’s had.

“Fatigue is certainly a by-product of this process and will continue to be for another month or so while I finish up my immunosuppressant drugs,” Walsh said. “I have another 40 days of immunosuppressant drugs before this procedure is considered completed, but at least I can spend those days in Maine.”

According to Walsh, who spent about three hours in his office on Monday, he is ahead of schedule in his NIH treatments.

“They had never released anybody before day 60 of this treatment,” Walsh explained. “I said to my doctor [Dr. Richard Childs] last week ‘Records are made to be broken.’ He turned to the head nurse and said ‘Records are made to be broken. Let’s let the coach go home.’ ”

Walsh’s most recent round of treatments involve a week of chemotherapy, which began May 10 to suppress his immune system in preparation for the transplant, and the actual transplant on May 17. His outpatient treatment consisted of blood tests at NIH twice weekly until his release last Friday.

The process usually involves 21 days in the hospital, but Walsh was able to go to his brother Kevin’s house in Annandale, Va., each afternoon and not return until the next morning by day five. Walsh had surgery to remove a cancerous left kidney in Boston July 7, 2000, and underwent immunotherapy cycles at UCLA’s Johnsson Cancer Center in August and October. He successfully underwent surgery, which involved the removal of his left lung and cancerous tumors located under his breastplate, March 29 at NIH in preparation for the stem-cell procedure.