Today, Monday, March 11th, was stem cell collection day. Believe it or not, these last two weeks were all prep for today. We checked in to the Apheresis unit at 7:30 AM. The nurse drew some labs, as well as a CD34 count, which can help predict whether I should collect enough stem cells or not. The results came back pretty high, which meant I should have no problems collecting the amount of stem cells I needed.
The nurse connected me to the pheresis machine. Essentially, a machine with a huge centrifuge that filters the stem cells out of my blood, and then returns my blood back to me. It took four hours to complete. That’s right, I was unable to get out of bed for four hours! The first two hours went pretty quick, the other two were definitely more challenging. I made sure to skip coffee and hold off on any hydration that morning, but somehow my bladder was still exploding!
I also felt some mild tingling in my mouth and fingers, which is normal in the process, since it can affect your levels of calcium. The nurse simply adjusted my calcium drip accordingly.
We were told we could leave as soon as I’m disconnected from the machine and that we will get a follow up phone call from the stem cell coordinator as far as how much was collected. David and I packed up our stuff and headed straight towards my favorite ice cream store, Graeter’s! After all, I had to make sure my calcium levels were good 😆!
On our way back we received the call. I had collected a total of 32 million stem cells!! Our goal was to collect between 5 and 9 million. I was definitely one of their record highs!
The plan now is to return to the IR (Interventional Radiology) in the morning to have my trifusion catheter removed. This way we could head back to Pittsburgh in time to celebrate Daniella’s birthday!
This now completes Part I of my stem cell journey. God willing, the first week of April I will be admitted for some more fun. Stay tuned!
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