I finally got the call from the BMT Nurse today, my CD34 counts were finally high enough to begin harvesting tomorrow! So far I have been pulsed, purged and now primed. I added the purged and primed as my own descriptors.
The pusing was by the use of cytoxan to help drive down the m-protiens and then the “priming” began with daily injections of neupogen. My past experienc with neupogen was not very nice, bad, bad pain in the sternum and lower back. I thought I was out of the woods with this round of shots – 8 days and no pain – until tonight! My sternum feels like 17 – 5 yearolds in the bouncy ride at the fair – all jumping around and hitting the sides. But in this case the sides are my bones and the kids are on concentrated Mt Dew with a high fructose chaser.
The collection/harvesting should be about 5 hours hooked up to the machine, I do not have a port or catheter in, the nurse thought I had very ‘nice” viens.
It may take 2-5 days to harvest enough stem celles for two tranplants but the way it feels, they may just hop right out and into the bucket.
Mom and I have been getting along fine, we walk to the clinic in the morning and then back and back if I have another appointment. We take a couple of short walks throughout the day. Tonight the Hmong Baptist Chruch Youth Group brought a bunch of cookies and i hammered home a few of theose and 4 scotcheroos from Tracy’s sister Mandi. Combine that with an Boost and I got my caloric intake for the day in about 5 minutes – right before bedtime.
Well, I am off to bed, I am going to watch Trinity Is My Name – there was a boxed set of 100 Western Classics here at the Gift of Life Transplant House. I should get through them all by the time I leave.