Apheresis Day 1

Not too bad really. Dad and I got to NMH about 7:45 this morning, got my labs started and went to interventional radiology to get my tunnel vascular catheter put in. They put me in the twilight, so I didn't feel much, which is good because this tube is pretty big and probably would have wigged me out had I seen it going in. Then, when I was sober enough to walk, we went back to the blood lab to start the apheresis.

The machine that spins my blood and pulls my stem cells out looks kind of like a wild, Rube Goldberg contraption. It has little lines running everywhere and like 4 pumps on it and a bunch of different bags hanging on the top. I kept waiting for a song like Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang to start playing, but no go. Instead, they hooked me up to it and basically I just sat in the chair while it pulled blood out of one of the ports in my chest and returned it through the other. Because I got the larger, more permanent vascular catheter, they were able to open the machine up to a relatively high speed, which meant that instead of taking 5-7 hours it only took 3. Dad and I were super happy with that.

Then, I got the lecture about keeping the port clean and how the home health care folks would be coming by once a week to change the dressing and clean the port. Honore and I will have to flush it daily with saline, but the heparin and other clot preventing drugs have to be administered by a nurse. I didn't understand that the port goes directly into my Inter-Jugular(I think that's what she was saying) vein, which is one of the body's largest. Because of this, infection risk is very high and any infection would be spread to my heart quite quickly. Additionally, they have to keep me on blood thinners because if I developed a clot around the port inside the vein, and it broke loose....well, let's just say thanks for playing. Wasn't aware of those risks going in, but I'm not worried. We'll keep it clean and be good. Having the Tunnel catheter means no more needles!!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYYYYYY!!!

The best part of the day was the twilight sedation wiped out the bone pain from the Neupogen. I've decided Neupogen is an evil medication. Simply evil. It makes my bones hurt so freaking bad. And last night, in an effort to take the edge off the pain, I made the mistake of putting an ice pack on my back. OMG DID THAT HURT!!! I talked to the nurse today who explained that it hurt because the cold constricted the vascular pathways leading into my bone marrow, which all the excess cells were using to try and get out. Wow, would have been handy to know that ahead of time.

Anyway, they need 10 Million Stem cells from this harvest. According the early returns from the machine, I should probably get 2-5 million today, so I should be done Thursday or Friday at the latest. After than, I'm free until Tuesday, August 26th, with the exception that I can't do anything strenuous because of the port and no swimming. But that means I can do the Leukemia Cup Regatta, which I'm really looking forward to going out to play that weekend.

Honore and Cupcake are doing very well. Cupcake's sitting up on her own, and playing with making noises, most of which are at the top of her lungs. She's also reaching and grabbing any and everything within arms reach including Brutus(which is not his favorite, but he's a good sport about it). She's fast enough to dump Honore's dinner off the table and onto the floor the other night, which caused Brutus' opinion of the baby to skyrocket, as to him this was manna from heaven.

Honore's super busy with work, as is usual in August with all the kids getting ready to return to school. Every year is like this, crazy in August, then slow in early September as the Moms get the fall schedules aligned. Good news is we're ready for it, bad news is its alot of extra hours when we're already pretty busy with me and the baby. She's a trooper though, and will get through it.

Love,

Trav