Harvesting

It is Monday morning, 1/21/13. Today is the start of the harvesting phase of the transplant process. As I type this blog entry, my blood is being withdrawn from my body, spun around in a centrifuge at 2400 rpm to separate the stem cells into a thin layer from which they are extracted and stored, and then the rest of the blood is placed back into my body. By the time the process is completed over a 4 to 5 hour period, the machine will have withdrawn, processed and replaced the equivalent of more than 3 times the volume of blood in my body. You'd think all that spinning around of my blood cells would make me dizzy, but I seem to be doing okay.

Our schedule today and for the next few days is to show up at the hospital at 7:00 AM and go through the plasmapheresis process for 4-5 hours. This will go on until they have collected about 6 million stem cells (enough for two transplants). It could be 3 days, it could be 7. They/we just don't know. Today through Wednesday we also have a training class that starts early afternoon.

The weather outside is cold. The high today will be -5, but the wind chill is -33. Carol has some comments about it from our brief walk outside, but this morning we  rode the shuttle from the house, rather than walk the 3.5 blocks from house to clinic.

So many of you have sent me messages of encouragement and have let me know you are praying. I am truly overwhelmed, and grateful for each one.