May 27, 2009 Extraction, Round Two

In the overall scheme of things, today was pretty easy. Up at 5:30 (I actually woke up to the alarm, hallelujah!) and off to the Mayo for the usual, two shots and a blood test. The blood test was the first taken from my new catheter. It really wasn’t necessary as they were going to start the second round of the harvest even without the feedback, but they just want to know where I started the day with regard to my blood cell make-up.

The harvest started at 8:30, so I was going to be in bed for the next five hours. After about an hour, we received the results of the blood test which, for the most part, was good news. The number associated with the stem cells was well over the required 10 at 32. That meant that there was a good chance that today might be the last day of harvesting, which is very good.

In addition, my white blood cells were through the roof which is not unusual with this type of procedure. However, my platelets were well below normal levels. After today’s session, they will probably be only a quarter of what is normal. I could probably bleed to death from a paper cut, so I am making Julia cut up my meat for a while.

While I have the blood flowing in and out of the machine, they also give me fluids to help the process and help maintain calcium in my system. Yesterday, I handled them without a hitch as I was dehydrated because they didn’t let me drink anything after midnight the night before. Today, I was not so lucky. Because they don’t want to unhook you from the machine, you have to use a small hand held urinal if you have to extricate liquids from your system. This was something I really wanted to avoid.

Even though I used the men’s room just before the process, after about 2 hours, I couldn’t wait any longer. I asked Marion (my nurse) to close the curtain from the rest of the packed room and get me one of the containers. She obliged and my lovely wife offered to help with the process as I was hooked up to the machine with five tubes hanging from me. It was OK until she suddenly found the situation humorous.

Just what I needed. I’m trying to make as little noise as possible since there are about 20 people just outside the curtain. (Do you know the government once commissioned a group to study what was the best way to minimize the sound of urination into a toilet? I digress.) Needless to say, despite my intense desire to alleviate some of the excess liquid in my body, I just couldn’t get the spigot to work. At this point, Julia is splitting a gut and I’m getting comments from the peanut gallery on the other side of the curtain. All of those extra credits that she had earned over the last four months were just washed away.

After a few moments that seemed like fifty, I kindly asked her to leave. Once she was gone, the plumbing worked as it should and I took care of my situation. OK, so I admit I have a problem urinating when people are watching (especially when they act like it is a stand up comedy routine). Sue me.

We finished up with the harvest at about 1:30 and Marion changed my bandage for the second time. I’ll probably be making the trip up to the Mayo every other day just to have that done. Julia and I grabbed some lunch and I crashed at home about 3:30 waiting for the call to see if I needed to get more cells harvested on Thursday.

At 6 PM the call came and over 5 million stem cells were harvested. That puts me at over 9 million and more than enough for the transplant. I’ll still go up to the Mayo tomorrow for a redressing of the wound, but no shots and no harvest. I might actually make it into work for a bit.