Stem cells

Well after much delay, we began the process of harvesting my stem cells in the event that I get a recurrence of this leukemia. Considering how bumpy and unpredictable this road was, this is a very reassuring process for me to go through. It is particularly awesome to have a plan for the possible worst case scenario.
Anyhow, we had initially wanted to get this done early August, but that was complicated by insurance issues. My carrier and the George Washington University Hospital did not have an established relationship for Bone Marrow transplants. It took a few weeks, but they reached an agreement. So that’s pretty awesome.
So finally we get the green light get this process underway. 4 Days before the start, I have to start giving myself Neupogen injections to stimulate the bone marrow to reproduce. This is the same drug that I would get after each round of chemotherapy to boost my immune system and shorten my naders. The idea is that if they get the bone marrow to reproduce so quickly it will run out of space in the bones and will therefore be dumped into the blood stream, where it can be easily harvested.
On Tuesday, the day before the harvest I went down to the hospital to have a central line placed in my neck. This is most definitely not the convenient of places but it hey… its only a few days right? That procedure was simple enough. I had been through enough things similar to it that I didn’t need to be sedated (this thing doesn’t hold a candle to a bone marrow biopsy). The consequence of this procedure is that I have 2 huge lines coming out of my neck each wider than a drinking straw. Honestly, I feel like a juice box for vampires, they won’t even have to bite and they can suck all the blood out of my jugular. For the first day and a half it was really sore around the site where they placed it. But with Tylenol 3, that made things ok.
Finally, we get to main event, the harvesting. This actually is a simple and painless procedure. They hook up your neck tubes to a machine that extracts your blood, separates into its different elements and it filters the layers that it needs with the stem cells in them. And then the machine gives you back the blood that it didn’t use (how nice of it). In one session, this machines processes my entire blood volume 4 times to extract about 500ml of blood stuffs. I have to say, it’s all pretty cool stuff.
After every day, the extract gets counted to see if they have enough of right kind of cells they need. So far we haven’t gotten to the right number yet but we are hoping that this third day of harvest will produce enough cells to reach our magic number.
The only remaining issue is whether they left me enough platelets to have my neck accessory to be removed today. As much as I enjoy it, I would rather have it out for the weekend. But oh well… that really is the least of my concern right now.